Archive for the ‘Temasek’ Category

“The Fed rate projections have been significantly lowered over a three-year horizon. This points to a later lift-off,” FT quotes a BNP Paribas economist.

In simpler English:

“The Fed is in no rush,” said Ward McCarthy, chief US economist at Jefferies.

“At the current juncture, the timing of the liftoff is still indeterminate and will depend upon the inflation data. The policy statement eliminated the use of ‘patient’ in forward guidance, but the FOMC also described the new forward guidance as being “consistent” with the prior forward guidance.”

He added: “The word ‘patient’ was removed, but the meaning of patient remained.” (BBC)

Or as Reuters puts it: The Federal Reserve on Wednesday moved a step closer to hiking rates for the first time since 2006, but downgraded its economic growth and inflation projections, signaling it is in no rush to push borrowing costs to more normal levels.

Sovereign Wealth Funds Said to Be in Talks to Back O2 Deal — Some of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds, including the China Investment Corporation, Singapore’s Temasek and G.I.C. and one of Qatar’s big government-sponsored vehicles, are said to be in talks to provide financial backing for Hutchison Whampoa’s $15 billion acquisition of Telefonica’s British mobile business, according to a report in the Telegraph that cited unidentified sources.

The CEOs of Llyods and HSBC UK are reported to be hot favourites according to Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-28/lloyds-hsbc-executives-seen-as-favored-for-stanchart-ceo-role. Both are Portuguese. And the latter is gayhttp://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/18/hsbcs-antonio-simoes-says-being-gay-was-key-to-career-success .

Wespac’s CEO is also in the frame.

Another report says that our very own Gupta (FT turned new citizen) is also a possible candidate.

Given that StanChart is big in M’sia, Hk, India and Indonesia, and wants to be big in China, I somehow don’t think appointing a gay is on the cards

FT’s Lombard thinks that “ex-StanChart guy Alex Thursby” will get the nod.

Alex Thursby, who went on to run ANZ’s Asian businesses and is now the CEO of National Bank of Abu Dhabi. In his current role, he is trying to drive a bank that will become multinational by following trade within the emerging world – what he calls the West-East corridor. But when asked if this looks a lot like a StanChart model, he says: “I think this has similarities with the Standard Chartered of old. The Stanchart model has changed over the years since I was there, and whether it’s changed for better or worse is for others to make a judgment on.”

Thursby’s words are carefully chosen but he’s clearly referring to StanChart’s ventures into financial markets businesses that it used to leave to the pure-play investment banks. And it is notable that the financial markets business is the one that is causing the problems in the bank today; the warning today says that division is the “main challenge” facing the bank and that everything else is in line with expectations. The head of that business, Lenny Feder, is to take a 12 month sabbatical for personal reasons, the bank says, and will not return to that role afterwards.

The financial markets business in StanChart parlance includes some things that others might consider mainstream, like foreign exchange, but it also houses equities and commodities, among other things. Peter Sands, speaking about the reduced performance, said today that the business was being hit by falling volumes in rates, squeezed margins, regulatory changes, and the fact that less business is done in a low-rate environment.

None of which would have had much impact on the Standard Chartered model of old. Which raises a further question: perhaps this most storied and reliable of institutions should get back to doing what it’s good at. It might be boring. But it works.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that Temasek and Aberdeen (between them they hold 30% of StanChart) had told chairman Sir John Peace that he must find a replacement for Mr Sands within months or stand down himself.

FT reports the bank is looking to replace Peter Sands this year and has hired a headhunter to look for a successor ASAP. It says that Temasek and Aberdeen hold him responsible for not responding fast enough to a reversal of StanChart’s fortunes.

Here’s a possible reason from the letters page of the PAP’s bible, the Economist:

State-owned failings

* SIR – No long analysis is needed to understand why state-owned firms underperform (“State capitalism in the dock”, November 22nd). Two main mechanisms exist for accountability in modern society: market pressure and political control. State-owned firms fall between the two. They lack the degree of competition that private firms typically face but also do not have the direct political control that applies in conventional government.

Lack of accountability means lack of performance. Effectiveness is best secured by either keeping ventures with classic government agencies, instead of with state-owned firms, or by placing ventures in fully privatised companies with full market exposure, whichever best suits the activities in question. A bit of each is not enough, but instead creates a grey zone with grey results, which is what we see for state-owned firms.

Double confirm that StanChart is a rogue bank and the PAP apologist is a fool because now: The management of Standard Chartered is facing renewed pressure after being placed under fresh scrutiny by US regulators.

The second biggest shareholder in Standard Chartered (after Temasek with around 27%) is standing by the embattled Asia-focused bank, continuing to buy the stock and insisting that nothing is “fundamentally wrong” with the company.

Martin Gilbert, chief executive of Aberdeen Asset Management PLC, said that funds run by his company have been “buyers of the stock in a fairly modest way,” despite a series of profit warnings that have sent Standard Chartered’s share price down 33% this year.

“We do not think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the bank,” said Mr. Gilbert, during a call to discuss Aberdeen’s results. He said that revenue growth had slowed but added that he would prefer the bank’s existing management team, headed by chief executive Peter Sands, to “sort it out” rather than looking for a replacement: “They have to really get on with it, I would say, and have a look at the costs.”

Aberdeen owns 7% of the bank, according to Factset, and, as of Oct. 31 2014, that had not changed since last year. Some Aberdeen funds have “topped up” their positions this month however, according to an Aberdeen spokesman.

The value of Standard Chartered shares held by the emerging markets-focused fund manager slid from a peak of $5.1 billion in February last year to $2.6 billion in October, according to Factset data. Part of that was due to an 8% reduction in the size of Aberdeen’s stake at the end of last year, but most was due to the bank’s falling share price.

It has some big exposures to heavily indebted clients, such as India’s Ruia brothers, who control the Essar Group, and Indonesian billionaire Samin Tan.

Honest mistakes.

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But the facts won’t stop Philip Ang, TOC’s and TRE’s star analyst, from cursing and ranting: he’s so bad that in a piece on a GIC, London investment, he left out the rental yields out of his calculation because he said that the income was “peanuts” (my word, not his). Well commercial property yields are a gd 6%, and have been as high as 8% in some yrs recently.

At the end of October, NOL announced: that losses continued in the third quarter with the company $23m in the red compared to a net profit of $20m a year earlier, hit by port congestion in Southern California.

“We see a slowdown in emerging markets, partly driven by a lower need for raw materials from China. Europe – it’s very slow growth, if any, at the moment, and there’s no reason to expect a big change here,” said Nils Andersen,Maersk’s chief executive.

Revenues for the third quarter were flat at $2.06bn. For the first nine months of 2014 NOL lost $174m, compared to a $61m profit in the same period last year that included a one time gain from the sale of its headquarters building.

NOL claimed cost savings of $290m so far this year but these had been “largely offset” by lower rates, lower volumes and increased costs for port congestion.

But about a week later, FT carried this report: Denmark’s largest company by sales reported better than expected profits in the third quarter and lifted its profit outlook for Maersk Line, its container shipping business.

Maersk has bucked the trend in a container shipping industry dogged by overcapacity, losses and weak demand. Thanks to aggressive cost cutting and lower use of fuel, Maersk Line is by far the most profitable container group.

Maersk Line estimates its operating margin, which was 8.2 per cent in the second quarter, was 8.5 percentage points higher than the average of its rivals.

It lifted it again in the third quarter, posting an operating margin of 10.5 per cent, and leading Maersk Line to boost its guidance for the year for net profits to more than $2bn compared with $1.5bn previously. Net profit in the third quarter rose by a quarter to $685m.

“The days of rapid growth in containerised trade are over. We have to be happy as an industry that we are still growing . . . But we can still make good business,” said Mr Andersen.

But Maersk is more than just a container shipping group as the conglomerate has sought to emphasise its other businesses in recent years including oil exploration and production, port terminals and drilling rigs.

….

AP Møller-Maersk lowered its forecast for growth in global trade as the owner of the world’s largest container shipping line said a slowdown in emerging markets and Europe was weighing on demand.

The Danish group, seen as a bellwether for global trade as it carries 15 per cent of all seaborne freight, said demand had slipped in the third quarter compared with the start of the year and was now expected to increase by 3-5 per cent this year, down from 4-5 per cent.

So having a scholar, ex-SAF general and ex Temasek MD hasn’t done any favours for NOL, or S’pore Inc. On his watch (to be fair in really bad weather,he crashed NOL onto the rocks. Still in charge despite that , he has repeadely failed to stop the water from coming in.

The red ink continues to flow with plans to sell its APL Logistics unit in a sale that could fetch at least US$1 billion (S$1.27 billion).

Top bosses at Standard Chartered admitted the bank’s performance had been disappointing as they announced plans to close 100 branches in a $400m (£250m) cost-cutting drive to win back support from disgruntled investors.

The admission was made as the bank’s top management team began three days of presentations to investors, who have endured a 30% drop in share values. There are also concerns about whether the bank has enough capital.

At the start of the three-day presentation, the new finance director, Andy Halford, said: “We recognise our recent performance has been disappointing and are determined to get back on to a trajectory of sustainable, profitable growth, delivering returns above our cost of capital.”

The chairman of StanChart said to 300 of the bank’s senior managers in Singapore last week, “We’re making changes. But all you have to do is go out in the field, go out into our markets, and you very quickly realise that it’s not broken. It just needs to go in for its 10-year service and we are in there for that 10-year service now … it’s a question of going through this difficult period, gritting our teeth”.

He said: “Humility is a very important word. It’s very important that we recognise we make mistakes”.

(And Chairman Sir John Peace was in Singapore last week insisting the bank is not ‘broken’. Three profit warnings say otherwise http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/09/standard-chartereds-charm-offensive-may-not-save-sands)

Well the PAP has been making changes, gritting fangs and sheathing claws since 20111: spending more of our money to make life more comfortable for ourselves.

But it doesn’t ever do humility (OK PM did apologise once during a 2011 GE rally speech, but hey he had an election to win). It won’t even admit that the PAP’s Hard Truths need servicing every now and then. It’s all a question of new blood to uphold Hard Truths.

Taz the impression I get after this

— “Today is the time to re-dedicate ourselves to the party and to Singapore. In the next 60 years, the path ahead will be different.”

— “One thing has not and will not change, that is the need for good leadership. The PAP commits to provide the leadership and serve Singaporeans better…The PAP will always be on Singapore and Singaporeans’ side.”

— “The PAP will always do its best for Singapore and Singaporeans.”

PM made these statement at the Victoria Concert Hall on 7 Nov in celebration of PAP’s 60th anniversary.Victoria Concert Hall was the venue because this was where the PAP launched way back in 21 November 1954, with its inaugural political meeting held there.

So because the PAP is not prepared to service its Hard Truths to see if they need throwing out, we are stuck with

The Hard Truth behind the other difficulties S’poreans face listed above is that govt should not spend tax-payers money on “welfare”, only on toys for the military and govt running expenses (which includes ministers’ and civil servants salaries).

Standard Chartered Plc (STAN) fell for a fourth consecutive day in London after U.S. prosecutors reopened investigations to determine whether the bank, which entered into a deferred prosecution agreement in 2012, withheld evidence of Iran sanctions violations.

The U.S. Justice Department, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial Services, are all reopening their original inquiries into the London-based lender to determine whether it intentionally withheld information from regulators before the 2012 settlements, according to two people briefed on the matter, who asked not to be identified because the probes are confidential.

The private sector-led, Government backed Guangzhou Knowledge City (GKC)* is a good model for future Singapore-China projects, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday (Sep 12).

… Mr Lee said he was happy with the progress, six years after he first discussed the project with provincial leaders … the private sector-led GKC is a different model that Singapore is “trying out” after the Suzhou Industrial Park and Tianjin Eco-city, both government-to-government projects. (CNA on Friday)

Funnily the private sector leadership is provided by Temasek-owned company Singbridge who is in a j/v and the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. Singbridge is 100% owned by Temasek, 100% owned by the Minister for Finance. Not even the fig-leaf of a SGX-listed TLC like Keppel or SIA.

And PM went to Catholic High and NJC? But then Yaacon was from RI (see tom)

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*”The hurdle for government-to-government projects like Suzhou and Tianjin will be higher in future, so I think this (GKC) is a good model that we should explore going forward,”

“But there has to be a balance between private sector leadership and government support, and there has to be market demand for what’s being offered by the project” …

Located 35 kilometres from Guangzhou city centre, work is underway to turn the Guangzhou Knowledge City, currently a 123 square-kilometre site into a future magnet for industries like pharmaceuticals and info-comm technology, part of local authorities push for so-called high end industry.

Standard Chartered has said first-half operating profits will be 20% lower than a year earlier, blaming a slump in income from its financial markets business.

The warning comes only three months after the Asia-focused lender reported its first fall in annual profits for a decade.

The UK bank had been expected to show a modest bounce-back this year.

But it said tougher regulations and low market volatility had hurt revenues.

…

Standard Chartered said its interest rate and foreign exchange trading had been particularly hit.

Chirantan Barua, an analyst at Bernsteinm said: “Cyclical headwinds are yet to arrive in full force in the bank’s two key markets – Hong Kong and Singapore. Not that Korea or India is out of the woods either.

“Pack that in with a challenging and uncertain capital regime that won’t be resolved until the end of the year and you have a great deal of uncertainty around the stock.”

StanChart shows the peril of investing in a stock listed overseas overseas that operates internationally. When profits were gd, sterling was weak against all major currencies. When sterling is strong, profits no gd. Note the value of sterling is irrelevant to the underlying profits or losses of most of bank’s international operations.

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ON AN afternoon in early summer a prospective customer walked into the gleaming new branch established in Shanghai’s free-trade zone by DBS, a Singaporean bank that, like many of its international rivals, has long touted China’s great promise for its business. The lobby was empty, save for a guard playing a video game. A log showed that the branch was attracting just two or three visitors a day. DBS remains optimistic about China and says that most of its free-trade-zone transactions are routed through other locations. But the torpid atmosphere at the branch points to foreign banks’ struggle to crack open the Chinese market.

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To be fair to DBS its New Citizen CEO is not like the FT CEO of OCBC who may have blundered.

OCBC is offering to buy Wing Hang Bank’s shares for 125 Hong Kong dollars (US$16.12) each, in a big bet on China’s sustained economic growth. OCBC hopes the deal will springboard its growth into mainland China through the Hong Kong bank’s cross-border operations, and give it a foothold in Macau.

OCBC and Wing Hang Bank, one of Hong Kong’s last remaining family-owned lenders, began discussions on a possible deal late last year, and in January entered exclusive talks (after ANZ and UOB balked at the family’s asking price), which were extended twice as they argued over price.

The most recent comparable transaction (and bargaining benchmark for the family), the 2013 sale of Chong Hing Bank, went for 2.35 times book value including the value of a special dividend related to Chong Hing’s real estate. Accounting for the increase Wing Hang ascribes to the value of its property, the OCBC offer is closer to 2 times book value, a discount, compared to the Chong Hing deal, considering Wing Hang’s return on equity averaged 11.3% for the past three years, versus 7.8% for Chong Hing, according to Capital IQ.

Still OCBC shareholders were not that happy and its share price suffered.

What is unknown is the value of Wing Hang’s Hong Kong real estate, on some of the busiest shopping streets in the world. These could be worth even more than the bank says. A government index of Hong Kong retail properties has risen 400% over the past decade. Yet the company’s revaluation over the acquisition cost of the property is less than 100%.

If enough of Wing Hang’s minority shareholders refuse the price on offer, however, OCBC might prefer to raise it or offer* or bear the cost of maintaining the Wing Hang listing, and the cost of failing to fully integrate the bank.

Update at 6’00am: Here’s someone who thinks OCBC got sold a dog.

Wing Hang gives it greater opportunity to finance trade between China and other parts of Asia such as Malaysia and Indonesia, where it already has a foothold. Wing Hang’s strong funding base – loans were just 73 percent of deposits at the end of last year – is another advantage, as is its ability to capitalise on the yuan’s growing international popularity. About 17 percent of Wing Hang’s deposits are currently in the Chinese currency.

Nevertheless, the purchase brings risks to OCBC investors. China’s economic slowdown is creating credit wobbles, while Hong Kong’s property boom is bound to have led to some lending excesses. Meanwhile, rising interest rates in the United States could reverse the cheap deposits that have flowed into both Hong Kong and Singapore in recent years. Shareholders, who will probably be asked to help finance the purchase, may pay a high short-term price for OCBC’s long-term China ambition.

Came across this thoughtful piece by Andy Mukherjee over the weekend. It explains clearly the issues and trade-offs Singapore faces in building our ideal society, while ensuring that Singaporeans have jobs and economic opportunities to build better lives and a brighter future. As the article points out, we do enjoy important advantages compared to other countries, but it will still not be easy. There are serious trade-offs, which we must be willing to acknowledge and address. If we just pretend that everything can be better, and no hard choices are necessary, we will get into trouble. Mukherjee calls this “please-all economics”, and expresses confidence that Singaporeans are too pragmatic to fall for it. We must make sure that he is right. – LHL on FB two weeks ago

But if we don’t know how much money we have, and how much are the returns the reserves are making for us, how can we judge if the trade-offs PM and his govt make are the right ones? After all he has as gd as admitted his govt got immigration, welfare, public tpt and public housing policies wrong by changing (sorry tweaking or is it evolving?) these policies.

And these were policies significant numbers (self included, and I note not M’sian new citizen Pussy Cat Lim who confines herself to general banalities) had been warning against for yrs. We were called “noise”, until the govt decided to change these policies.

This is what one LHL said many yrs ago when he was DPM and economic and financial czar:

The Singapore government, May 16, defended the secrecy surrounding its financial reserves of more than US$100 billion, saying it was not in the national interest to disclose details. The veil of secrecy was necessary to protect the Singapore dollar from speculative attacks, Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in parliament.

And if I remember correctly, his dad once said that info reserves had to be kept a secret so that S’poreans couldn’t ask for more welfare, which they would if they knew how much money S’pore had. Readers correcting me or referencing the quote appreciated.I can’t find it via my googling.

In this mobile internet age, it is sad and self-defeating that the the PM and the PAP govt (ministers and civil servants) cling to the Leninist system that all information is political and can be designated a “state secret” at any time if the govt decides it does not help to bolster the govt’s or party’s own legitimacy and power.

BTW flaw in AndyM’s analysis which disqualifies from being an unbiased analyst

There is a fifth way which Mr Mukherjee has not considered. It is to reduce and reallocate government expenditures. In particular, the government can consider reduce defence spending so as to increase spending on welfare. This is a classic “Gun vs Butter” resource allocation problem studied in elementary economics. At present, Singapore is spending nearly a quarter of the $57 billion estimated government expenditures for FY2014 on defence alone (23% at $13 billion) … [TRE]

Maybe he aiming to be a PAP minister? He is a FT based here.

He did serious weight-lifting in 2011 at a Temasek briefing:First of all, congratulations on beating the sage of Omaha because [ … ] you seem to have out performed Warren Buffett on every horizon. He was BSing as Temasek and Berskshire cannot be compared ’cause Berkshire is listed, Temasek is not.

And if you think PM’s remarks on trade-offs when juxtaposed with his remarks on the need for secrecy on reserves are Orwellian, his press secretary’s remarks in relation to Roy Ngerng are even more chilling:

… What is at stake is not any short-term positive or negative impact on the government, but the sort of public debate Singapore should have. When someone makes false and malicious personal allegations that impugn a person’s character or integrity, the victim has the right to vindicate his reputation, whether he is an ordinary citizen or the prime minister. The internet should not be exempt from the laws of defamation. It is perfectly possible to have a free and vigorous debate without defaming anyone, as occurs often in Singapore. Emphasis mine

Foster public debate by suing for defamation? Come on, pull the other leg, it’s got bells on it. I’m reminded of the slogans in 1984:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

SIR – I refer to the article “A butterfly on a wheel” (June 13th). You referred to an “alleged ‘serious libel’” by Roy Ngerng. This is not an allegation. Mr Ngerng has publicly admitted accusing Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister, of criminal misappropriation of pension funds, falsely and completely without foundation. After promising to apologise and to remove the post, Mr Ngerng did the opposite; he actively disseminated the libel further. This was a grave and deliberate defamation, whether it occurred online or in the traditional media being immaterial.

What is at stake is not any short-term positive or negative impact on the government, but the sort of public debate Singapore should have. When someone makes false and malicious personal allegations that impugn a person’s character or integrity, the victim has the right to vindicate his reputation, whether he is an ordinary citizen or the prime minister. The internet should not be exempt from the laws of defamation. It is perfectly possible to have a free and vigorous debate without defaming anyone, as occurs often in Singapore.

FT reported a few moons ago on how Alibaba is likely to be valued in a coming US IPO:

Would-be buyers of Alibaba’s unlisted shares and convertible bonds have recently been making offers that value the group at $120bn-$150bn*, according to bondholders and others involved in the market …

That is a sharp contrast with 2012, when Alibaba issued the $1.6bn convertible bond to a small group of investors including Singapore’s Temasek and GIC.

At the time, Alibaba was valued at less than $40bn, two people with direct knowledge of the situation said. Under the terms of the deal, the bond will convert into equity upon completion of an IPO.

($= US$)

Temasek haters like Chris Balding and Heart Truths must be feeling sick. The bonds are worth 3 times the price that Temasek, GIC paid for them. Even at the low end valuation valuation of US$80bn, the bonds would have doubled in value. Keep on cursing Heart Truths and Chris Balding (and TRE posters). GIC, Temasek are like Sith Lords, they do well when you keep cursing them. LOL

Temasek’s chairman Lim Boon Heng (the chap who cried when voting for casinos) was quoted by BT on 31 March as saying, “Coming from a little island nation with no natural resources except for some granite rocks, we are not a sovereign wealth fund in the normal sense of the term,” he said at a reception to mark the opening of Temasek’s new European office in London last Friday.

“Instead, we invest capital accumulated from generations of hard work and commitment by everyone in Temasek and the Temasek portfolio companies,” said Mr Lim in a speech at the Millennium Mayfair Hotel.

Well, I could reasonably say that he is talking rot*. It could be reasonably argued that part or most of money saved (via budget surpluses) could have been be more productively spent on making life better for S’poreans. It could have been spent on

The list for the productive use of govt revenue rather than to play roulette or baccarat (OK, OK invest) can go on and on.

Leading local economists (not juz a wannabe opposition politican) have made this point about better uses of govt money than squirreling it away for a rainy day that never comes**. They juz don’t get reported by our constructive, nation-building media.

But maybe the govt is changing its attitude and Temasek is leading the way?

Olam is into sustainable, ecofriendly agriculture.

Sor and farmers from 36 communities in the Juabeso/Bia district are part of a project to produce climate-smart cocoa, claimed to the the world’s first. The $1m, three-year pilot collaboration between Rainforest Alliance (RA), an environmental organization, and Olam International, agricultural company, offers financial incentive to the farmers.

…

In the wild, cocoa trees grow under taller trees, which protect them from the scorching sun. But in Ghana as in neighbouring Ivory Coast, which together account for more than half the global supply, cocoa is grown as a monoculture.

“I had a lot of trees on my farm, but I cut and burned them. I thought they brought diseases, were a nuisance and took the place of cocoa,” says the mother of four, who owns a 4-acre farm in Eteso. “I didn’t know about the importance of shade trees until I joined the group.”

Three cheers for Olam and Temasek for helping African farmers. Next stop S’pore SMEs?

Maybe Temasek is experimenting in Africa. Next an investment in a S’pore based co that helps S’poreans? Charity begins at home.

BTW, nice to see that GIC opened an office in Brazil. About time as Latin America is becoming unfashionable among the ang mohs.

GIC opened an office yesterday in Brazil, as it looks for more investment opportunities in Latin America.

The new office – its 10th globally – will focus on areas such as real estate, healthcare, financial and business services, and natural resources and infrastructure.

“Our presence in Brazil will enable our partners to engage early and interact closely with the GIC team, which is very beneficial for complex and sizeable investments,” said group chief investment officer Lim Chow Kiat.

“We believe our partners will gain from having access to GIC’s global network of business contacts and market insights. Although emerging markets remain volatile, we are confident of the long-term Latin America growth story.” (Yesterday’s BT).

These countries need capital, now that the ang mohs no longer like the area. China is investing there, BTW.

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*One of these days I’ll blog why ever since Devan Nai, Lim Chee Onn and Ong Teng Cheonf, we’ve had clowns as NTUC leaders. Lim may have been a failure as NTUC leader (Devan Nair fixed him), he he turned out to be a gd for Keppel, for which I’m grateful.)

**I hope thyose who think the world of Ong Teng Cheong realise that he wanted to look away even the returns from reserves away from the masses. Lee Hsien Loong and co got their way on using some of the returns on govt spending.

S$ is a strong currency, the rupiah a weak one; but this yr the rupiah has outpeformed

The rupiah has risen 7 per cent against the US dollar this year, making it the world’s strongest performing currency, while the Jakarta stock market is also rallying, now up 10 per cent. Yields on 10-year government bonds have also come down to 8 per cent, having jumped as high as 9.2 per cent last summer – another sign of fresh enthusiasm for Indonesia’s growth story. FT on 13th March).

Gd that we have a neighbour liddat as China’s growth slows. And Indonesia’s a MINT.

And whatever TRE posters* and Chris Balding say, Temasek has made gd money in Indonesia (think telco and banking, though it has yet to exit the latter) despite a hostile political environment. Money talks.

Too bad about its aggressive, civilian-killing armed forces that would loot and plunder S’pore if given half a chance. Whether we need to spend 25% of the Budget on defence is open to reasoned debate (something which the PAP govt rubbishes) but there is no doubt that we should continuing be a poisonous shrimp to deter Indonesian generals and admirals who want to loot and plunder. The Indonesian govt does not control the military, as the constant outbreaks of internal lawlessness (including the murder of civilians) by the armed forces shows.

Example: Two Indonesian ministers have expressed regret over the inappropriate conduct by two Indonesian marines who had posed as the MacDonald House bombers at the Jakarta International Defence Dialogue exhibition on Wednesday.

*Yes, TRE readers have written to me telling me that the majority of TRE readers are not losers like “oxygen” and those who call me names, but are “Calm Persistence” and “Hard-pressed Anxiety” types). They dislike being associated with losers: they are hard-working S’poreans who think that the PAP has betrayed them. As to why they don’t fund TRE, they say that that as typical S’poreans, they are free-loaders by nature and that I’m wrong to associate “Calm Persistnce” and “Hard Pressed Anxiety” with community spirit and generosity of spirit. . If they were not free-loaders and apathetic, then TRE would not be the voice of S’poreans. Err, kinda confusing. I got to think thru this paradox.

Methinks that all those posters on TRE’s piece on Olam are banging their private parts real hard and crying in frustration http://www.tremeritus.com/2014/03/15/temasek-leads-consortium-to-buy-out-debt-ridden-olam/ . They missed making $ and are also upset that Temasek made gd (but peanutty ) money supporting Olam. Even those who pretend rationality while hating all things PAP ( s/o JBJ and Chris Balding?) can only sputter that if Olam is so gd, why buy now not earlier? May I suggest that they read FT’s Lex (behind paywall): squeezing the shorts leh; and Breakingviews (see below).

My tots on the stock: don’t tender the shares. Let’s go for the ride. At worse, kanna bot out if delisted. If buying lose only “peanuts” if kanna bot out. Remember my previous tots which TRE republished late last yr?

– When Olam released its quarterly results in early November, it showed it had generated positive free cash flow – the first time in four years for a seasonally weak quarter.

Its executive director of finance and business development A Shekhar told analysts and reporters: “We’re very pleased that we’re striking the right notes on both objectives of profit growth as well as free cash-flow generation.”

– Ang mohs are still sceptical about the parts of the stock’s biz model.

– But they bulls on Africa and Olam got an edge there. Africa is now seen a destination mkt, not juz an exporter of commodities i.e. origination mkt:

The commodities houses are attracted to the African destination business for three reasons. First, demand is rising fast, in many cases at double-digit annual rates. Second, many African governments subsidise basic commodities such as petrol and wheat, in effect guaranteeing a return to the traders. Third, most African countries lack the infrastructure needed to import raw materials, from silos for storing wheat and rice to terminals for unloading petrol. The commodities houses say that, as they build this infrastructure, they will be able to secure a market and benefit from years of rising demand. (FT report on Africa dated 10 November 2013)

This is what the deal’s all about (other than squeezing the shorts’ balls, hard real hard):

The most immediate beneficiary of the buyout is Olam’s creditworthiness. Despite Temasek’s minority shareholding, the company has faced persistent queries about its debt load. That’s particularly damaging for a trading house like Olam, which relies on the confidence of its counterparties. In future, creditors will view Olam as an extension of its sovereign parent.

My next piece of advice to those TRE readers who keep on cursing Temasek and its CEO but who end-up banging banging their balls in frustration: Go analyse SMRT.

Trmasek and Ho Ching haters should come up with new lines of attack. The world has moved on from the crisis of 2007-2009. The recovery of global markets means that post Temasek’s losses on ABC Learning, Barclays and Merrill Lynch/BOA, performance has been in line with the recovery in world equity markets. Two of its dogs are dogs no more: Shin is 50% up from its purchase price (though how to exit is an issue), and go check the price of Chesapeake. And the glee over Olam has turned to tears as Olam powers ahead, giving Muddy Waters a bloody nose. Big playpen bully has met a bigger bully. True blue S’poreans and xenophobes should be cheering Ho Ching on, not cursing her. But then hatred of the PAP is often irrational.

Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings Pvt Ltd TEM.UL is seeking to sell its $3.1 billion stake in Thai telecom company Shin Corp INTUCH.BK, according to people familiar with the matter, and has approached its SingTel (STEL.SI) unit as a possible buyer. But the troubles in Thailand have put an end to the talks.

TRE and TOC readers will be banging their balls when they learn: The Temasek stake in Shin Corp, founded by former Thailand prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, is worth $3.1 billion by current market value.

Shin Corp’s shares now trade more than 50 percent above the price paid in 2006 by a Temasek-led consortium, that included Chinese-Thai businessman Surin Upatkoon, when it bought 96 percent of the Thai firm for a total of $3.8 billion.

As for SingTel:

“At a fair price such a deal would make sense for SingTel,” Chris Lane, senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in Hong Kong who covers Asia-Pacific telecommunications. SingTel is 52 percent-owned by Temasek.

Shin Corp owns 40.5 percent of Thailand’s biggest mobile telecoms company, Advanced Info Service Pcl ADVANC.BK. SingTel already has a 23 percent stake in AIS: Adding the Shin Corp stake would cement its position in a bigger market and offset sluggish growth in mature economies where it’s also present, like Australia.

“SingTel executives are involved in the day-to-day operations of the company AIS,” said Bernstein analyst Lane. “Buying the stake from Temasek avoids the possibility of another ‘telco’ securing a significant interest in AIS.”

FPT Corp, Vietnam’s largest publicly traded telecommunications and software company, has asked Temasek to help it identify a Singapore technology company for acquisition to boost sales overseas, the Bloomberg news agency reported.

FPT will spend as much as US$20 million (S$25 million) on a Singapore acquisition, Chief Executive Officer Bui Quang Ngoc said in an interview on Wednesday. The company, which had sales of 28.6 trillion dong (S$1.7 billion) in 2013, seeks to more than triple revenue from overseas to US$400 million by the end of 2016, co-founder Mr Ngoc, who took charge in July, said in Hanoi. “Singapore is a very attractive market,” Mr Ngoc said. “If we can be successful in Singapore, it means we have enough experience to do it in other countries.”

FPT is looking to acquire a Singapore company that specialises in software services such as inventory management, order processing and employee payroll, said Mr Duong Dung Trieu, chief executive officer of FPT Information System, a unit that contributes 25 per cent of the parent’s pretax profit.

The company plans to make the acquisition in Singapore “as soon as possible,” Mr Ngoc said. Temasek holds less than 5 per cent stake in FPT, according to the Vietnamese company.

Finally airport services and catering firm SATS (a listed TLC) agreed to buy a 41.65 per cent stake in Indonesian aviation and food service provider Cardig Aero Services for 1.1 trillion rupiah (S$118 million) to grow its business in South-east Asia’s largest economy.

Indonesia is a priority market said SATS. The country’s topography and a fast-growing economy and middle-class population will continue to drive greater demand for high-quality food and travel, it said. “CAS is an attractive investment opportunity in our core business which will generate sustainable value for our customers, employees and shareholders as Indonesia continues to grow,” said Mr Alexander Hungate, President and Chief Executive Officer of SATS.

Standard Chartered had a bad start to the hols. Last Monday, its shares fell sharply on the possibility that it might call for a rights issue in the wake of weakish results. They’ve since recovered but there was another sharp fall on Fridaty, albeit from a much recovered position.

It has also been forced to strip its finance boss of his responsibilities to oversee the lender’s risk division following pressure from the Bank of England.

Richard Meddings, who has been group finance director of Standard Chartered since November 2006, had to hand over governance responsibility of risk to Peter Sands after the Prudential Regulation Authority said it was concerned with Meddings holding two conflicting roles, according to news reports.

In particular, the PRA, the Bank of England’s financial watchdog, was concerned with the potential conflict between Meddings’ finance responsibility and his duty to oversee risk operations.

All this against the background that it is no longer an ang moh favourite because emerging markets are no longer in fashion. Their economies are slowing while the Western economies are recovering. And the wall of money is returning to the West.

BTW, those readers of TRE who bitch that Temasek lost money on StanChart and say that I didn’t know this fact are daft: all they needed to do is to google up StanChart’s 10 yr price. But if anyone wants to see the numbers: here’s why.

Many moons ago TRE told us that Temasek owns bonds in Chesapeake that are convertible at US$27 (issued when stock was around 23-25). And that the bonds were deeply underwater: the shares went as low as below 15 (Sorry the TRE link no longer is working ’cause of TRE’s new system of trying to get money from stone) Related post: https://atans1.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/gd-news-for-temasek-on-chesapeake/

Well over a yr later, the shares closed yesterday at 26.79, having traded as high as 27.50 in recent months. Let’s see if TRE updates its story on Chesapeake. Suspect pigs will fly first. What say you Richard, TeamTRE?

There’s more. On 16 August, MediaCorp’s freesheet (ST Lite) reported: Temasek Holdings has sold its 4 per cent stake in Cheniere Energy after a surge in the share price of the United States natural gas importer, just 15 months after it unveiled the purchase as part of its “longer-term interest” in the energy sector.

The move is a sign of Temasek’s willingness as a self-professed “active investor” to realise profits. But it also comes after Temasek last year billed the stake as part of a broader plan to cooperate with Cheniere and US private equity group RRJ Capital to take advantage of the US shale gas revolution.

“The shares had a decent run over the past year,” said Mr Enrico Soddu, an analyst at the London-based Institutional Investor’s Sovereign Wealth Center. “Temasek just seized the opportunity to make a solid profit.”

Temasek sold 9.2 million Cheniere shares either directly or through affiliates in the second quarter, valuing the stake at US$257 million (S$326.2 million), according to a quarterly filing of its US stock holdings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Shares in Cheniere had climbed as much as 200 per cent by the end of the second quarter after Temasek and RRJ announced in May last year they would spend about US$468 million on an equity investment in Cheniere.

Temasek and RRJ were to have formed a marketing company with Cheniere to sell liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Asia in a bet on rising shale gas production and exports to the region.

More to irritate Temaeek and S’pore (self) haters, especially TRE readers*. There are advantages to S’poreans’ reputation as the Prussians of the East: hardworking, careful, conscientious and mindlessly efficient. These are very qualities that make Keppel and SembCorp world beaters in rig-building.

Singapore’s two main yards, Keppel and SembCorp Marine, have also invested heavily in quality and efficiency. They specialise more in deep-sea rigs than in drill-ships and carriers. Keppel, the bigger of the two, is building a record 20 such monsters this year; next year it will deliver the first of three giant, $600m “jack-up” rigs (ones that are floated into place then jacked up on their legs).

Time is money

The Singaporeans are also good at building things on time, which is vital in an industry where late delivery can cost the operators of rigs and drill-ships over $500,000 a day. Over the past five years, rigs ordered from Keppel and SembCorp were, on average, delivered ahead of schedule, whereas Chinese yards delivered 50-250 days late, says IHS Petrodata, a research firm.

As to China’s cost advantage, having facilities in Indonesia helps provide cheap labour for SembCorp’s rig building biz. Keppel too has an Indonesian operation, though its tiny compared to SembCorp’s.

And with Vietnam having problems with China over maritime boundaries, one wonders if Chinese built-rigs are allowed in its waters. Remember, energy cos are exploring for oil off Vietnam. Still, the waters do not require the sophisticated rigs built by these TLCs.

*Though TRE readers will be pleased that these TLCs are not led by ex-generals or ex-Temasek MDs. The CEO of Keppel is a scholar, but I’m not sure of the background of CEO’s SembCorp. But both have worked that these TLs for many yrs. They were not parachuted in like in NOL to teach executives to suck eggs.

The Aeroportos do Futuro group led by Odebrecht SA, and including Singapore airport operator Changi Airport Group, offered 19 billion reais (US$8.3 billion) and won the right to run Galeao airport in Rio de Janeiro, which will host tourists for the soccer World Cup next year and the 2016 Olympic Games, for 25 years. The consortium offered nearly four times the minimum bid for the right to operate Rio’s Galeão airport for the next 25 years.

We will only know the consortium overpaid if we know the next highest bid. Will let you know if this info is made public in Brazil )))

— When Olam released its quarterly results in early November, it showed it had generated positive free cash flow – the first time in four years for a seasonally weak quarter.

Its executive director of finance and business development A Shekhar told analysts and reporters: “We’re very pleased that we’re striking the right notes on both objectives of profit growth as well as free cash-flow generation.”

— Ang mohs are still sceptical about the parts of the stock’s biz model.

— But they bulls on Africa and Olam got an edge there. Africa is now seen a destination mkt, not juz an exporter of commodities i.e. origination mkt:

The commodities houses are attracted to the African destination business for three reasons. First, demand is rising fast, in many cases at double-digit annual rates. Second, many African governments subsidise basic commodities such as petrol and wheat, in effect guaranteeing a return to the traders. Third, most African countries lack the infrastructure needed to import raw materials, from silos for storing wheat and rice to terminals for unloading petrol. The commodities houses say that, as they build this infrastructure, they will be able to secure a market and benefit from years of rising demand. (FT report on Africa dated 10 November 2013)

Even Chris Balding flies SIA

Would the Temasek model help improve the efficiency of China’s state-owned enterprises? Only one (Singapore Airlines) or possibly two (DBS bank) of Temasek’s GLCs have established themselves as international brands, according to critics such as Chris Balding of Peking University*. SingTel has made successful foreign acquisitions, but other GLCs have fared less well. STATS ChipPAC, a semiconductor firm, lost money in the second quarter of this year, as a result of the costs of closing a factory in Malaysia.

The few academic studies of Singapore’s GLCs are more encouraging, however. A 2004 article by Carlos Ramirez of George Mason University and Ling Hui Tan of the IMF showed that the country’s GLCs enjoyed a higher market value, relative to the book value of their assets, than comparable private firms. They also generated a higher return on assets, on average.

In judging the performance of Temasek’s GLCs, the counterfactual is important. They may not be as obviously successful as private titans from the region such as Samsung or LG. But they are not nearly as bad as most SOEs, including China’s. The enthusiasm for reform of SOEs in China reflects their deteriorating returns and accumulating debt. According to M.K. Tang of Goldman Sachs, their return on assets was 6.5 percentage points below that of other Chinese firms in 2012 and their shares trade at a growing discount. Even Mr Balding, meanwhile, is happy to fly Singapore Airlines.

Well since late June, Chinese bank shares have been on a roll, example ICBC (where Temasek had been picking up shares this yr) is up more than 22%. Recent Chinese economic data has got investors buying the banks again, ang mohs included. So much so that some smaller Chinese banks are planning IPOs in HK.

Anyway,Jack, the usual suspects, and the readers of TRE, TOC and TRS needn’t yet bang their [ ] in frustration. Firstly, Temasek can never ever exit these investments given that S’pore wants to be China’s friend. Temasek got big chunks of BoC and CCB at a “special” price.. It can only play around the margins, reducing its cost of these investments.

Then are there two more reasons why we should be worried about Temasek’s punt:-

Alibaba, the e-commerce group that just bought a 51 percent stake in asset manager Tianhong for $193 million, is the banks’ main foe. By July it had made over $16 billion in short-term loans to companies who sell goods on its sites. Its real-time records of borrowers’ cashflows and counterparties aid lending decisions.

Banks’ deposits are also under threat. WeChat, the mobile chat app that clocked up over 300 million users within two years of being launched by gaming group Tencent, is working on distributing wealth products via smartphones, and offering payment for fund managers, according to Chinese media. Alibaba lets users reinvest surplus balances in their online payment accounts into money market funds. That gives savers a better return than the 3 percent capped rate they get on bank deposits.

Tech companies’ desire to disrupt the financial services sector is understandable. China’s big banks make returns on equity in excess of 20 percent.

Add to that, an attempt to shake up the country’s slow-moving financial industry and create more investment opportunities for the private sector, Chinese regulators have invited companies from across the spectrum to apply for banking licences.

It’s stating the obvious. Any highly leveraged smallish stock where Temasek exits from being a major shareholder would suffer. Temasek 1, MW 0.

Temasek has also since then progressively increased its ownership of Olam, from an initial 16.3 per cent before the Muddy Waters attack to 24.07 per cent now. Temasek 2, MW 0

In Mr Block’s view, Temasek had stepped in because of the wider implications that an Olam collapse would have posed to the commodity-trading industry in Singapore.

“If Olam had failed, what would the banks have done with the other commodity houses that are borrowing in Singapore?” he said. “It’s reasonable to assume that if the banks had to write off losses to Olam, you could have a real funding freeze for the commodity trading industry in Singapore.”

Maybe the narrative that Olam is changing doesn’t fit his bearish thesis. Olam is building a packaged foods business. In countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and Mali,, where it now generates sales of US$350 million, and aims to be the Unilever or Nestle of Africa. Might be interesting. Have to chk out waz this as % of total revenue and net profits. Sadly the article doesn’t give this which makes me suspicious that it’s a tiny share. Still will chk, and anyway Africa is a hot market. Temasek 5, MW 0

Final bull point, Olam did stop doing some things that Muddy waters was rightly bitching about. It shows mgt is pragmatic and flexible (Temasek 6, MW 0) , unlike the PAP govt on the FT policy (Remember the White Paper?).

Interestingly, Olam is one of the cos having an open day: a great idea.

MORE listed companies with large numbers of retail shareholders are setting aside time for the management to meet investors.

In a new trend, these companies are holding a “retail investor day” as well as the mandatory annual general meeting (AGM).

Usually, retail investors get to meet and question senior management only at the AGM.

Data from SGX My Gateway and Bloomberg showed aircraft engineering firm SIA Engineering Company topping the list, with a total return of 164 per cent over the five years to Sept 13, the cut-off date for this exercise. This includes price increases and cash dividends paid out, and works out to a compounded 21 per cent a year.

— With bad loans and competition rising, China’s largest banks face tougher times ahead. ChinaScope Financial, a research firm partly owned by Moody’s, a ratings agency, has analysed how declining net interest margins will affect China’s banks. It estimates that the sector will need an injection of $50 billion-100 billion over the next two years just to keep its capital ratios at today’s level. The managements of the Big Four realise this, and have won approval from their boards to raise over $40 billion in fresh capital over the next two years. But Andrew Sheng of the Fung Global Institute, a think-tank, reckons the sector will need to raise even more later: up to $300 billion over the next five years.

— China’s bad debts could blow a $500 billion hole in bank balance sheets. That’s roughly how much extra equity the eleven biggest lenders might need if 10 percent of their loans went sour, according to a Breakingviews calculator.

ICBC pays 6.1%, while CCB and BoC pay 6%. If it had AgBank, it would get 6.4%.

Contrast this with the dividend yield it gets from

— DBS: 4.4% (UOB’s yield is 2.9% and OCBC’s is 3.2%)

— Bank Danamon: 2.4%

— StanChart: 3.5% (BTW, earlier this month the bank said that it was no longer targeting double digit revenue growth this year. Year-on-year revenue growth in the first six months was less than 5% for the first time in 10 yrs.)

And there are gd reasons to be fearful. One is concern that there could be more bad debts building up in the system as the economy slows/

Another: ChinaScope Financial, a research firm, has analysed how increased competition and declining net interest margins will affect banks operating in China. The boffins conclude that the smallest local outfits, known as city commercial banks, and the middling private-sector banks will be hit hardest, but that returns on equity at the big five state banks will also be squeezed (see chart). They think the industry will need $50 billion-100 billion in extra capital over the next two years to keep its capital ratios stable.

The bigger worry for China’s state banks is the signal sent by the PBOC’s move. The central bank has affirmed its commitment to reform. If those reforms include the liberalisation of deposit rates, then something far more serious than a minor profit squeeze will befall China’s banks. Guaranteed profitability would end; banks would have to compete for customers; and risk management would suddenly matter. In short, Chinese bankers would have to start working for a living.

And two of China’s four “bad’ banks (they bot portfolios of dud loans from Chinese banks, the last time the Chinese cleaned up their banks in the late 1990s and early noughtie), are planning to raise capital via IPOs. They have impressive returns. But maybe China is preparing for the day it has to recapitalise the banks again. In such a case, the UK and US experience is that the other shareholders get diluted, and can lose serious money. Think UBS and RBS.

Even if there is no recapitalisation, there are likely to be rights issues, something that ang moh fund mgrs don’t like.

But to be fair, this big chart shows a possible reason why Temask is optimistic. Despite loan growth, bad loans are falling. But the economy was growing rapidly. And sceptics point out that the numbers may be flakey. In the 1990s, the real bad loan position was 20%, not the lowish figures reported at the time. Investors forget this ’cause banks were 100% govt owned.

Seriously, DBS, Temasek and Indonesia all lose following DBS’ decision to allow its agreement to buy Temasek’s stake in Bank Danamon to lapse after the Indons only allowed it to buy up to 40% of Bank Danamon. It wanted DBS’s entire 67% stake and more: see Backgrounder at end of article for details.

Why DBS loses

Piyush Gupta, pulling his [US]$6.5 billion bid for PT Bank Danamon Indonesia, said his ambitions in Southeast Asia’s largest economy may be set back by about five years.

The lender had sought a controlling stake in Danamon as part of a strategy to expand in markets outside Singapore and Hong Kong, which jointly accounted for 83 percent of its profit in 2012. Average net interest margins for banks in its home market are 1.82 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg based on the latest company filings, lagging behind lenders in the rest of Southeast Asia. In Hong Kong, the measure is even lower at 1.66 percent, the data show. [Note that DBS gets 80% of its profits from S’pore and HK.]

In contrast, Indonesian lenders are the most profitable in the world’s 20 biggest economies, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Banks with a market value of at least $5 billion boast an average net interest margin of 6.6 percent, the data show.

Note too that DBS doesn’t have much of an Asean presence outside S’pore. It has no retail network in peninsula Malaysia, unlike UOB and OCBC: a failure of its botched attempt to takeover OUB in the early noughties. And unlike Maybank and CIMB, its M’sian rivals, it has only “peanuts” in Indonesia. They, Maybank, in particular, have thriving and biggish S’pore operations.

— “DBS missed out on a value-creation opportunity,” Kevin Kwek, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. … The bank “will have to build up a presence in Indonesia the longer and harder way.”

— “Indonesia was supposed to give them a leg up in terms of growth,” said Julian Chua … at Nomura … “There may not be that many willing sellers of such a sizable bank.”

FTs can be blamed for these historical failings, though Gupta and his deputy are exceptions to the rule that in DBS the “T” stands for “Trash”, not “Talent”. They have stabilised DBS’ operationally. And are trying to repair the damage done by DBS’ earlier FT inspired strategy of buying non-controlling stakes in regional banks.

Why Temasek loses

Its involvement as a shareholder in both banks helped spark an anti-Singapore political backlash in Indonesia. The value of its investment has also been reduced by new Indonesian restrictions which limit single bank shareholders to a 40 percent stake. That makes Danamon a less attractive target because Basel capital rules make it expensive for banks to hold minority stakes in other lenders.

However, Temasek can also take comfort. It is under no immediate pressure to sell. And though Danamon shares fell by more than 13 percent on Aug. 1, Temasek’s 67 percent shareholding is still a highly successful investment.

DBS had proposed acquiring the 67.4 percent stake in Danamon held by Fullerton Financial by allowing it to swap its Danamon holdings into DBS shares. The exchange was to be at a price of 7,000 rupiah for each Danamon share and called for DBS to issue 439 million new shares to the Temasek unit at S$14.07 apiece, increasing the stake held in DBS by Singapore’s state-owned investment company to 40.4 percent from 29.5 percent.

Following that transaction, DBS would have made a tender offer for any remaining Danamon stock at 7,000 rupiah a share, taking its holding in the Indonesian bank to 99 percent.

Temasek has accumulated more than [US]$17 billion of holdings in Beijing-based ICBC, China Construction Bank Corp. (939) and Bank of China Ltd. over the past two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Global firms including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Corp. have divested holdings as new capital rules known as Basel III make it more expensive to hold minority stakes in banks. (Bloomberg few days ago)

Temasek has stakes in three out of the four biggest Chinese banks. It therefore has stakes in the world’s largest, fifth and 9th largest banks. It doesn’t have a stake in Agriculutural Bank, the 10th largest.

Jeffrey Fang, associate director of corporate affairs for Temasek, in response to a query from BT in early June*, said: “As a matter of policy, we do not invest directly in casinos or tobacco companies at the Temasek level – this is a deemed interest due to the aggregation of the direct or indirect investment stakes held by the Temasek subsidiaries.”

But a few days later, it was reported in FT that Temasek has a almost 3% stake in Shuanghui International, the Chinese owned entity that is bidding for Smithfields, the world’s biggest pork producer, based in the US.

Temasek has accumulated more than [US]$17 billion of holdings in Beijing-based ICBC, China Construction Bank Corp. (939) and Bank of China Ltd. over the past two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Global firms including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Corp. have divested holdings as new capital rules known as Basel III make it more expensive to hold minority stakes in banks. (Bloomberg few days ago)

S’poreans have to keep a beady eye on developments in the Chinese economy particularly in the financial sector.

Well things don’t look that rosy:

There is of course a second and much more disturbing possible implication of spiking lending rates in China – which is that the slowdown in credit creation will lead to tumbling asset prices, widespread bankruptcies and the crippling of the banking and wider financial system …

According to a recent and influential report by Fitch, outstanding loans by Chinese banks and shadow financial institutions were equivalent to 200% of GDP at the end of 2012, up from around 125% of GDP in 2008.

As quantum, domestic business and household debt at two times GDP is high – pretty similar, for example, to a debt burden on the UK private sector which has hobbled our [UK] economy.

But it is the stunning and unsustainably rapid rate of growth in Chinese credit creation, and who has borrowed the money, that are the main sources of concern.

Unless China is re-writing financial history, much of that money will have been lent without due care to businesses and individuals, and many of them will never be able to repay much of it.

Well in the case of the UK, two major banks were effectively nationalised, and the existing shareholders were left with “peanuts”. And UBS and Citi received injections of cash from their central banks in exchange for securities, exchanges that diluted their other shareholders, including GIC.

In 2007/2008, our SWFs’ bot into UBS (GIC), Citi (GIC) and Merrill Lynch (Temasek) in a big way that ST characterised then as showing S’pore was a tua kee investor.

Hopefully Superwoman Lina Chiam will raise the issue of Temasek’s strategy doubling up on Chinese banks in parly so that the finance minister’s rebuttal of her concern, will be a matter of public record, come the next GE.

A few yrs back, netizens were screaming their heads off, cursing Temasek when it said it (via Fullerton) was planning to move into fund mgt: for foreigners. It was pointed out that this was unfair to S’poreans especially smaller investors who were getting “peanuts” 2.5% and 4% on their CPF monies.And that Temask’s staff were paid (indirectly) by the tax-payer but foreigners were getting the benefit of their expertise.

Funnily, these same netizens were bitching that Temasek was a lousy investor of S’pore’s money.

Anyway this new fund shows the govt (or at least Temask) does listen. LOL. Not that netizens care, ’cause thry’ve moved on to the next bitch LOL. Taz ’cause the internet is like water: always moving on.

Thais love debt: CP All, the Thai retailer controlled by tycoon Dhanin Chearavanont, borrowed $6 billion in May to fund a $6.6 billion takeover of Siam Makro, the Thai cash-and-carry group. Low interest rates and the hidden value in Siam Makro’s property portfolio mean the purchase can support hefty borrowing without any synergies. And in January another Thai tycoon, Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, won the battle for control of Fraser and Neave with a debt-heavy $11.2 billion offer based largely on breaking up the Singaporean conglomerate.

1997/1998 again? Both had problems then, esp the former.

Easy come, easy go:The main Philippines equity index has tumbled 11% and the Thai index 8.4% since May 22 when the Fed’s chairman talked of restraining QEIII. Still up on the yr, unlike S’pore.

Convert to gambling and the Philippines? Fullerton Fund Management Company (FFMC), a subsidiary of Temasek Holdings, has bought a 5.02% stake in Melco Crown Philippines Resorts Corp.

FFMC has acquired 222.2 million Melco shares, according to the company, which is listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange.

Melco is the Philippine unit of Nasdaq-listed Melco Crown Entertainment, which is backed by Lawrence Ho, a relative of Macau casino mogul Stanley Ho.

South East Asia is expected to drive growth in the luxury market in Asia this year. Analysts at Bain and Co predict that luxury goods sales will grow by 20% in 2013: Greater China only 6% http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22564297

Great graphics: explains how the opening up of Burma will allow ships to by-pass the Malacca Straits.

DBS’ woes

DBS Group Holdings is hoping it will have to settle for the minority stake (40%) it has been offered in Indonesia’s Bank Danamon. It hopes that talks between the central banks of Indonesia and Singapore will clear the way for a majority takeover. Pending these, it may ask for an extension from seller Temasek Holdings.

Note that because UOB and OCBC have a bigger regional presence (thks to legacy branches in M’sia), they trade at a 25% to DBS in terms of book value.

Carson Block, the short-seller who runs Muddy Waters LLC, said he’s betting against the debt of Standard Chartered Plc (STAN) (STAN) because of “deteriorating” loan quality, triggering a 13.5 percent jump in the cost of insuring against losses on the debt of the British lender.

Somehow I don’t expect StanChart to go berserk like Olam, “Carson Block is outside of the bank and does not have access to the bank’s loan files,” said Jim Antos, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. “He has very little ammunition in his gun to shoot at Standard Chartered at this point. He’s got one example of a large loan that appears to be something that possibly would not have been prudent to book.”

Clearly the ability of the investor to adapt to the market’s “four seasons” should be proof enough that there was something more than luck involved? And if those four seasons span a number of bull/ bear cycles or even several decades, then a confirmation or coronation should take place shortly thereafter! First a market maven, then a wizard, and finally a King. Oh, to be a King.

But let me admit something. There is not a Bond King or a Stock King or an Investor Sovereign alive that can claim title to a throne. All of us, even the old guys like Buffett, Soros, Fuss, yeah – me too, have cut our teeth during perhaps a most advantageous period of time, the most attractive epoch, that an investor could experience. Since the early 1970s when the dollar was released from gold and credit began its incredible, liquefying, total return journey to the present day, an investor that took marginal risk, levered it wisely and was conveniently sheltered from periodic bouts of deleveraging or asset withdrawals could, and in some cases, was rewarded with the crown of “greatness.” Perhaps, however, it was the epoch that made the man as opposed to the man that made the epoch.

And New rules will force mainstream lenders to cap their exposure to some of the riskier off-balance sheet products they have sold to customers – in particular, those that are effectively repackaged corporate debt. That limits a big source of risk for banks, but creates a new one for the Chinese economy.

The junk bond market in China took off this year. Although the deals still account for a small share of the global total, Chinese companies have sold $8 billion of high-yield bonds to overseas investors since January. That’s up from $2.3 billion during the same period a year earlier, according to figures from Dealogic … the Chinese market has its own set of potential problems, and some analysts worry that investors aren’t being properly compensated for the added layer of risks.

he bulk of the high-yield bonds in Asia this year — roughly half — come from Chinese real estate companies. The fear is that the housing market, which has been booming, is a bubble that will eventually burst.

Mainland China’s domestic bond market remains largely off limits to foreign buyers. So most investors buy offshore Chinese bonds, which are issued through holding companies headquartered in places like the Cayman Islands.

The bonds tend not to be backed by the actual businesses and underlying assets in mainland China. That means foreign bondholders may have little legal recourse if a company defaults on its debt, especially if local banks or other Chinese creditors make claims.

Bondholders are now facing such difficulties with the bankruptcy of Suntech Power.

Citigroup Makes Preparations for Profit-Sharing Plans Executives of Citigroup “stand to collect $579 million under profit-sharing plans that include the one shareholders voted against last year. The lender booked a $246 million expense in 2012 tied to the plans, adding to $285 million for the previous year and $48 million in 2010, according to regulatory filings,” Bloomberg News reports.

Charles Peabody, an analyst with Portales Partners LLC in New York, said the payouts are difficult to justify given last year’s shareholder rejection. Peabody, who told clients in a 2011 note that he was “dismayed” by the lack of stringent financial thresholds in that year’s plan, said today that Citigroup hasn’t done enough to tie pay to performance.

“The compensation plan was a travesty,” said Peabody, who has an underperform rating on the shares. “Citi’s board and management team continue to make a mockery of shareholder, political and regulatory demands that compensation reflect performance.” …The profit-sharing payouts are on top of annual salaries and bonuses granted to senior executives …

… Citigroup’s use of pretax profit to grant awards “sets the bar too low,” said Hodgson, the compensation analyst. “They’re not looking at anything else apart from pretax income, which is just not a good enough measure of a bank’s performance.”

Standard Chartered posted a slight increase in annual net profit in 2012. Its businesses in emerging economies offset a US$667 million fine in the United States connected to illegal money transfers.net income rose less than 1, to US$4.8 billion, compared with 2011, while revenue rose 8%, to US$19.1 billion. It was the 10th consecutive year that Standard Chartered had reported a yearly increase in its profit. Its vast operations across Asia, Africa and the Middle East helped protect the bank from many of the problems affecting developed economies like the United States and Europe … Standard Chartered has continued to expand in emerging markets by taking advantage of growing demand for financial services from both local companies and international entities looking to invest.

The bank said its operating income in China grew 21 percent last year, to $1 billion, as it benefited from expanding its local branch network sixfold since 2003. Standard Charted said it was now active in 25 emerging economies where its annual growth was in double digits.

In Vietnam, the government’s planned sale of a 20% in Sabeco, a brewery, is expected this year, according to bankers.

Wilmar, one of Asia’s largest agribusinesses, and Cargill, the commodities’ trader are setting up in Burma.

18 companies, including Malaysia’s Axiata, Norway’s Telenor Group, parent of the Thai mobile operator DTAC, Digicel, the Caribbean based operator, and two Singaporean companies, Singapore Telecommunications, one of southeast Asia’s biggest telephone companies, and ST Telemedia, a unit of Temasek Holdings, have submitted proposals for the two telecoms licences

The Burma has abolished a 25-year-old ban on public gatherings of more than five people: more liberal than S’pore.

Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) has made a US$100 million capital injection into its Philippines operations.The banking group, the fourth largest in the region, on the previous Friday launched a new corporate head office in Manila and announced plans to double its number of branches in that country to 100 by 2014, and thereafter to 200 by 2018, Malaysia’s Business Times said.

It currently has 54 branches there, with another expected to open in the city of Davao by the end of this month.

Maybank Philippines Inc (MPI), which has been operating since 1997 and is now the 24th largest bank by assets, may eventually go for a listing there. The Philippine central bank had last year issued a directive, requiring banks controlled by their foreign counterparts to go for a listing on the Philippine Stock Exchange.

“Do you want faster growth or do you want fewer foreign workers? Do you want more hard work or more leisure? Do you want more competitive schools and good results and good futures, or more relaxed schools and fall behind? How can we find that balance in between?” the Prime Minister asked. Whatever the hurdles, he emphasised that the PAP had always been open with Singaporeans, even when these trade-offs may be unpopular — SPH.

I got two gripes with the above remarks by PM.

Firstly, as usual he is framing* the issues in such a way so as to try to get us to answer the way he wants us to answer them. Dad used to do this successfully when we didn’t have the best education system in the world, when issues were less complicated, and when there wasn’t the internet. But times have changed, but PM hasn’t shaken off daddy’s influence.

— “Do you want faster growth or do you want fewer foreign workers?” Well how about asking, “How can we have faster growth without FTs? Can we substitute robots, or pay higher wages?” And more fundamentally what about, “Do we need faster growth? What about better quality growth?”

— “Do you want more hard work or more leisure?” What about asking,”Can we work smarter to have more leisure?” Or more fundamentally, “Are we working smart? Or are we working harder because we are not working smart?”

— “Do you want more competitive schools and good results and good futures, or more relaxed schools and fall behind?” Shouldn’t we be asking, “Are there other ways of educating S’poreans that ensure national prosperity and self-development?”

The FTs came pouring in on the quiet. The government was not open on this issue, public housing and transport, and inflation.

Mah Bow Tan was telling us that his HDB building programme was sufficient when S’poreans were saying it was insufficient. Well fact that Khaw has accelerated and expanded the building programme shows that Mah was wrong, if not in denial.

And remember Raymond Lim said GST had to rise when we bitched about overcrowded trainds and buses: he implied that we juz wanted more comfort and so should pay for it. He was wrong or in denial about the problem. Well the massive spending plans, shows that we were right to get upset.

And inflation. I’ve gone on and on about Tharman and Hng Kiang saying that higher inflation doesn’t affect S’poreans who don’t buy cars. That is obfuscation, not openness.

But never mind, the PAP can remain complacent because Low has publicly implied that a vote for the WP is a vote for continued PAP rule.

Not that I’ll complain too much. The low-tax environment and the emphasis on making sure property prices “cheong all the way” have allowed me to stop working in my 40s. And have the time to think; and grumble, constructively, I hope.

Olam proposed an underwritten rights issue of US$750m in principal amount of 6.75% bonds due in 2018, along with 387.4 million free detachable warrants. The issue price of the bonds will be 95% of the principal amount and the gross proceeds from the issue of the bonds are US$712.5 million. Terms of bond are generous.

Olam said the transaction was fully backed by Temasek which owns a 16% stake in the company. Temasek’s commitment “is a very strong, decisive action (for investors) not to have any worries about any of the allegations,” Olam’s CEO said.

The issue is underwritten by four major bank creditors: Credit Suisse, DBS, HSBC and JP Morgan. Again another sign of confidence.

So Temasek and the banks are onside. Goes without saying that the Indian conglomerate controlling Olam will subscribe for its share: It would, wouldn’t it?

And the shortists will have to cover their positions as investors recall their shares to make sure they get their rights.

Yr move, mongoose.

PS (at 8.50am): Gd counter by snake (must be King Cobra) to offer to pay for credit rating. Ang Moh Kaws must never underestimate Indians.

As Temasek is the second largest shareholder, will be interesting to see what it does. If it doesn’t buy Olam shares, Olam will remain under a lot of pressure. If it does buy, TRE, TOC readers and other cowboys (esp from Facebook) will be mindlessly attacking Temasek, juz because ang moh says Olam shares are a short.

“Analysts at Barclays recently highlighted concern over StanChart’s bad debt trends, evident in a 42 per cent increase in loan impairments in the first half of the year, compared with pre-tax profit growth of only 9 per cent,” reports FT. The growth is fastest since 2002.

So as StanChart still trades at a 25% to HSBC (1.5x book value versus 1.2X), this may account for the stories that Temasek wants out of its stake.

This is what BT, part of the constructive nation-building, 30-pieces-of -silver(?) SPH wrote earlier this week

NEPTUNE Orient Lines has disappointed some analysts with its third-quarter numbers even though it fought its way into the black with US$50 million in net profit, its first after six consecutive quarters of losses.

NOL, which owns the world’s seventh largest container line APL, fell 2.5 cents yesterday to end at $1.145.

“It underperformed just about everyone’s expectations. I’m not sure if people were expecting profit of that magnitude when the street’s view was about US$150 million,” said Timothy Ross, Credit Suisse head of transport research, Asia-Pacific. NOL is now among the least-preferred counters among Credit Suisse’s basket of seven Asian container companies.

Joining Credit Suisse in a dimmer view of NOL was CIMB, which downgraded NOL to “underperform” from “neutral”.

The problem with comparisons as distinct from Hard Truths (like Scholar is “betterest” for anything) is that they are so inconvenient that shumetimes the constructive, nation-building media must report them. Even thouh, ST has made him out to be a genius on par with the North Korean leaders who advise experts on how to do their work, BT had to report the facts saw them.

Hope this ex-general and Temasek MD doesn’t run NOL aground! The gd thing abt NOL is that it is lightly ge as the analysts sred, unlike other container lines. FTR, I got few lots. Better yield than FD.

But there are times when having scholars in senior posts helps. NSP used to hibernate between general elections. With two scholars on the executive commitee (Hazel and hubbie), NSP has decided not to indulge in its usual hibernation. It is actively walking the ground, and is finally planning a mone online. More next week.

The British bank where Temasek has a controlling stake of 19%, which agreed in August to pay the New York state’s top banking regulator US$340 million to settle money-laundering allegations (and in the process making a PAP apologist look even more stupid: he attacked the NY regulator as a “rogue prosecutor”), may be at risk of losing money on a US$1 billion loan to an Indonesian tycoon to buy shares in an Indon mining company*controlled by the family of an indon presidential candidate. He bought the shares at abt 11 sterling last yr. Now under 150 pence.

The shares closed at US$19.89. Temasek owns bonds that are convertible at US$27 (issued when stock was around 23-25).

It has many problems but the most pressing problem it spends more than it makes. It expects to spend roughly US$14bn on capital expenditure, acquisitions, interest, dividends and taxes this year, against about US$3bn in operating cash flow.

So it has to sell. This year, the company has reached agreements to sell US$11.6 bn worth of properties (including the ones reported below). It is aiming to raise a total of about US$13 bn to US$14 bn. S’poreans can only hope it succeeds.

The Chesapeake Energy Corporation said on Wednesday that it had agreed to a series of asset sales (US$6.9bn) as part of an effort to reduce its considerable debt burden.

Anyway it is cheap. Trading at about 1.17x book (HSBC trades at 1x book) even after its recovery. It usually trades usually at 1.3x book.

Hurry, hurry before the discount disappears. Buying at this level gives exposure to S’pore and HK where banks trade at around 1.3x book), and Msia and Indonesia (where banks trade at around 2x book minimum) at a discount.

Bucking the industry trend of weak earnings, the British bank Standard Chartered reported on Wednesday that its net income rose 11.3 percent in the first half of the year on strength in Asia and other emerging markets.

…

While many of its peers, like Deutsche Bank and Barclays, are scaling back their operations after the global financial crisis, Standard Chartered said it planned to increase its presence in Asia, Africa and the Middle East …

… said that it would open more branches in countries with fast-growing economies, like China and India, and that it was looking to exploit the decrease in its competitors’ trading activity.

But if investment is another Merrill Lynch or Barclays or like GIC’s UBS nightmare, amount lost will be “peanuts”. Still.

Credit Suisse initiated a series of measures on July 18 to boost its capital position, including a 3.8 billion Swiss franc issue of mandatory convertible securities to new and existing investors.

The securities will pay an annual coupon of 4% until they convert into 234 million ordinary shares in March 2013. Half the issue will be taken up by strategic investors including Qatar Holding, Saudi Arabia’s Olayan Group, BlackRock Investment, Capital Research Global Investors, Norway’s Norges Bank and Temasek. Some of the strategic investors have also underwritten the other half of the issue, which will be offered to existing Credit Suisse shareholders.

So “Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Singapore is prepared to share its experience in building industrial parks with India … Mr Lee believes there is potential for building such parks in India, following Singapore’s experience with such parks in countries like Indonesia and Vietnam … Singapore has been talking to several states in India about such projects … acknowledged that it would take some time, as land has to be acquired and approval has to be obtained. Support from the state government is also needed … if these hurdles can be cleared, Singapore will be able to build the parks faster and contribute to India in a strategic direction [such parks can help to boost the manufacturing sector in India which he says India needs. India also needs a substantial amount of manufacturing investments he claims] … the Indian economy is at a stage where it needs a considerable amount of investments, especially in infrastructure. Singapore companies have capabilities to handle some of these projects.”

But despite his bullishness (see here for the CNA report), Rohit Sipahimalani, co-chief investment officer of Temasek, told The Economic Times: “There’s a lot of uncertainty, but times like these also create opportunities. We will take advantage of the uncertainty, but will remain cautious.”

Recently Lord Rothschild, a 70-something deal-maker and shrewd investor, teamed up with the Rockefeller* family office. He said the US was the place to invest in because of its growing oil production. The two charts in this link explains what he means.

Sometime back, the new CIO said that Temasek is looking for investment opportunities in Europe. He said turmoil in Europe may result in a market slump rivaling the 2008 global financial crisis creating opportunities for Temasek to make deals. Earlier this year, Temasek hired former UBS Chief Financial Officer John Cryan to oversee its strategy for Europe, whereit has limited exposure. The hiring of Cryan had raised speculation that Temasek is eyeing distressed assets in the euro zone, shumething that the CIO has confirmed.

The Chinese even have a fund to co-invest with Chinese cos wanting to buy European coms for their technology or brands. Not juz but investment returns or financial egineering, unlike Temasek. Maybe our leaders should “sit down and shut up” when it comes to advising China to follow them? And observe what the Chinese are doing?

Hopefully, Temasek will remember that it bot Barclays and Merrill Lynch, and GIC bot UBS and Citi a bit too early in the 2008 cycle, to be precise in 2007. Temasek sold its dogs in 2009, juz went markets were recovering, losing billions. Given the losses, Temasek will hopefully be more cautious, even if it means losing some great bargains. Catching a falling knife will not amuse S’poreans, the “owners of Temasek” (Ho Ching once called us).

By planning to allow financial institutions a maximum of 40% in an Indon bank (applicable only to new investors), the Indon central bank has blocked Temasek’s plan to sell its 67% stake in Bank Danamon to DBS Bank where it has a controlling stake.

On a day when banks (and other blue chips) are weak in local trading (UOB -1.5% and OCBC -0.5%) fact that DBS is only -o.6% shows that investors are not upset over the failure of the deal.

One reason is that institutional investors don’t like big “strategic” deals by their investments because they usually overpay and are prone to destroy shareholder value. Here while the price is decent, the issue of lots of new shares to Temasek is dilutive to earnings.

Ah well back to the drawing board DBS mgt to find a new driver for growth. Same too for Temasek’s financial enginners. The deal would have reduced Temasek’s direct exposure to Indonesia while increasing its exposure to DBS.

Ang moh financial commentator says nice things abt Temasek (Bang yr balls SDP, Chris Balding, KennethJ and TRE. I hope TRE reflects that its heloo TJS has never said the nasty things that the others have said abt our SWFs. In fact by saying that S$60bn is “small change”, he implies that they are doing a gd job. But how would he know? He was in the loop over 20 years ago.)

As I said yesterday, our SWFs didn’t do extractive industries presumably because one LKY didn’t understand “miners”, he said a few yrs ago. Gd advice: given this (credit downgrade) a few weeks ago; and this (billionaire stalker of underperforming US cos) revealed yesterday that he had bought a 7.6% stake in Chesapeake Energy Corp and called for the natural gas producer to replace at least four directors, saying the board has failed “in a dramatic fashion” in its oversight of management).

Maybe, balls-up like this resulted in Temasek last week naming Boon Sim, former global head of mergers and acquisitions at Credit Suisse Group AG, as its president for North America. He will also work closely with teams to support its interests in Latin America and Europe.

On Friday, SMRT reversed its recent losses and was up 0.9% to 1.65. It was at 1.81 juz on 24 April.

Interestingly among the slew of brokers’ reports calling it a “sell”, “nationalisation” seems to be a dirty word, never raised except by two honourable brokers. Only Citigroup was willing to hint at re-nationalisation, “We’d even dare conjecture a Government-led end game, while only Kim Eng suggested that “selective nationalisation” is already taking shape, “A hybrid model, where the Government comes in to inject money, is perhaps the best model possible under the circumstances … like selective nationalisation where the Government pumps in money in certain areas … being done already – take for example, the Government co-paying for the buses to help operators expand the fleet.”

UBS said SMRT is highly likely to move to a new rail-network financing framework where it would pay the government for an operating lease instead of owning train assets,

And only Citigroup is willing to hint at, “We sense more drastic actions are needed, perhaps raising capital to shore up finances.” In simple English, it says a rights issue is possible. Everyone else was silent on this pink elephant in the room.

I think a rights issue is very highly probable.

Let’s go thru some numbers. At Friday’s close, the mkt cap of SMRT was $2.49bn., of which $1.35bn can be attributed to Temasek (It owns 54.3% of SMRT).

Now SMRT has plans to spend $900m over the next eight years and it wants LTA (i.e. the taxpayer) to share the cost. What if the government tells SMRT that it shld fund two-thirds of the cost because the Commission of Inquiry finds that SMRT was not maintaining the tracks properly. (I’m assuming the COI makes this finding based on the way the inquiry is going).

To fund this $600m, SMRT’s directors call for a deeply discounted rights issue to raise $600m (about 24.1% of SMRT’s mkt cap as of Friday). Add to that they say that dividends will have to be cut drastically*, and that Temasek has agreed to underwrite any shares that minority shareholders refuse to take up. Temasek will say that its decision to support the rights issue is a “commercial decision” of a long-term shareholder. Right, and pigs can fly, a leopard can change its spots, KennethJ and TJS can stop boasting, Chiam can renew the SPP’s leadership, and Yaacob can tame the internet tsunami by building a CoC flood wall.

In such a scenario, Temasek could end up with 75-80% of SMRT, as many minority shareholders decline to take up their shares because of the reduced dividend payments.

Ain’t this partial re-nationalisation? And Temasek can have its cake and eat it too, depending on whether the other shareholders subscribe to the rights. Since SMRT was listed in 2000, Temasek has received $694.3m in dividends (I’m including the dividend declared recently). A $600m rights issue and assuming it has to take up all the rights shares still leaves Temasek $94.3m ahead. Might as well make it $700m rights call then, shall we?

Ain’t nationalisation of the public tpt system in the WP’s manifesto (I’ve blogged on this and that the transport minister parrots his predecessors’ defence of the rojak “for profits” system). Lucky Tan has this video of my friend Eric Tan then a WP member (and treasurer) talking abt nationalisation at the last GE. So the silence of the WP which I’ve raised before) is strange, and in the longer term worrying (No can trust its manifesto promises, why shld voters trust the WP?).

So I hope in the May session of parly, GG for one can raise the issue of nationalisation and put the government on the defensive. Why GG? In July last yr, he wrote this on nationalising the public tpt system. This was after Eric Tan had left WP in a huff, so the call for nationalisation of the public tpt system did not end when Eric Tan left.

If the WP remains silent on nationalisation of the public tpt system, it would remind me of a Sherlock Holmes mystery:

Detective: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

Holmes: “That was the curious incident.”

BTW, OCBC (a ex-bull on SMRT) is still relatively bullish. It downgraded SMRT to hold from “buy” and lowered its target price to S$1.71 from S$2.04, citing weaker-than-expected earnings for 2012 because it estimated that SMRT’s capital expenditure in 2013 will rise to S$500 million due to higher expenses needed for upgrading its assets.

CIMB cut its target price from $1.68 to $1.50, suggesting a switch to ComfortDelGro to maintain an exposure to the land transport sector. Deutsche cut its target price to $1.61 from $1.75 while J P Morgan downgraded the stock from “overweight” to “neutral” with a target price of $1.60. Phillips cut its target price to $1.33, maintaining its “sell” call. I suspect Phillips is right. A rights issue will be priced at around the $1.33 level.

I’d buy some shares then. Never bet against Temasek when it comes to a local counter.

——

*”Some [analysts] expect SMRT to cut its dividend payout from 70-80 per cent of profits historically to at least 60 per cent.” (BT). What if this was reduced to 25%?

Last month, Temasek bought US$2.3bn worth of shares in Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), taking its overall stake in the bank to 1.3%. I commented that it was increasing its bet on the big Chinese banks (it owned big stakes in three of them) when the mood on them was getting bearish.

Well it is now sell US$2.4bn worth of its shares in Bank of China and China Construction Bank.

So overall, it is reducing its stakes in BoC and CCB (locking in some profits: it got into these at very attractive prices as a cornerstone pre-IPO investor) while adding a stake in ICBC to the mix at a slight discount to the market.

With even my dogs knowing abt the Indonesian story, while investors are getting excited about Cambodia and Burma, rightly, and rediscovering Vietnam (later abt it in the week), the Philippines has been quietly (a surprise as Filipinos tend to be excitable, boastful and noisy) getting things right.

But some investors are aware and reaping the benefits. Last yr, the Philippines stk market was the 7th best performer (and I think tops, 2.% rise, in Asia: yup was a bad yr overall for Asian and global mkts), and so far this yr it is among the top 10 globally, up more than 20%.

The Philippines, after years of indebtedness, is a net creditor.the country is getting its fiscal house in order. … The deficit has narrowed from a worrying 5-6 per cent a decade ago to a manageable 2 per cent …the political situation is vastly improved. (The FT (recently) via Today.

Remember that Brazil is finally becoming the powerhouse it always had the potential to be after almost 100 yrs of disappointing investors regularly. But then Argentina has gone the other way. Bulls can only hope that Filipinos are more like Brazilians, even though they like the Argies have Spanish blood, rather than Portugese blood)

BTW, Temasek is Filipino-lite. When it was unfashionable to own shares in the Indonesia, it had major stakes in Danamon (now being sold to DBS) and BII (sold at very high valuation to sucker MayBank) and in Indosat (sold at nice profit). It doesn’t own anything direct in the Philippines: no banks, no telcos.

Local banks presence is pretty light in the Philippines when compared to Indonesia. DBS has a 21.4% stake in BPI via its 40% stake in Ayala DBS where Ayala has the majority 60% stake. UOB seems to have a 2% stake in BDO Unibank which has juz called a massive US$1bn rights issue. OCBC doesn’t seem to have a presence in the Philippines. All three local banks have subsidiaries in Indonesia.

Singtel has major investments in the Philippines (via Globe 47% which it controls together with Ayala 32%) and in Indonesia. Global is the second largest telco in the Philippines.

Regular readers will know that Temasek’s investments in Bank of China and China Construction Bank are great investments. It came in as a pre-IPO cornerstone investor and unlike the Western banks that had similar status had not sold out. Gd friend of China. It trades out and in of these stocks to make realised profits. But these trading profits are peanuts as the trading positions are peanuts in relation to its holdings in these banks

And that it recently bot Goldman Sach’s remaining stake in ICBC, at a slight discount to its mkt price.

As this article explains these banks have an unending appetite for capital because they are “squeezed for capital”. So Temasek has to be willing to cough up more of our money if it wants to avoid being diluted when rights issues are called.

Temasek has agreed to buy Goldman Sachs’s shares in the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world’s largest bank. It will buy US$2.3bn worth of ICBC shares, taking its stake to 1.3% in the bank.

In an interview with Reuters at the end of March, Ho Ching’s presumed successor-in-training, Temasek’s head of portfolio management,acknowledged the heavy allocation to financials, but noted that it holds four very good banks: Bank of China, China Construction Bank, DBS Group and Standard Chartered. Well it has added ICBC to this list, and at a price close to the market price, unlike the stakes in the other two Chinese banks where it got a “special” price as a pre-IPO cornerstone investor.

But is it a wise move?

True, since the lows last October of the Chinese and HK stock markets, the shares of the four leading Chinese banks (including Bank of China, China Construction Bank and ICBC) have gone up by more than half, easily outperforming the broader market.

But since March, prices have been off (but masked by general market falls) because of concerns abt China’s growth, bad loans and comments by the Chinese PM, Wen Jiabao, who hinted of breaking the monopoly state-owned lenders have enjoyed in China’s banking sector. (The sector is dominated by four big state-owned banks and Temasek now has significant stakes in three of them.)

Mr Wen said that their monopoly was hurting businesses in the country, as they had few options to raise capital.

“Frankly, our banks make profits far too easily. Why? Because a small number of major banks occupy a monopoly position, meaning one can only go to them for loans and capital,” he was quoted as saying by China National Radio. “That’s why right now, as we’re dealing with the issue of getting private capital into the finance sector, essentially, that means we have to break up their monopoly.”

The lack of easy availability of capital has often been cited as threat to growth of small and medium-sized businesses in China. There have been fears that some of these businesses, seen as key to China’s growth, may turn to unofficial sectors for capital, increasing their borrowing costs substantially

But Temasek could be betting on, “Wen has one year left [in his term].” This was said by an unnamed Chinese state banker quoted by Reuters. “This is a task for the next generation of leaders. It cannot be accomplished within one year.”

But the banker could be wrong, Wen could be telling us what has been agreed upon between his generation and the next generation of leaders.

Remember, It took a beating on its finance industry holdings after the 2008 crisis, losing about $5 billion in stakes held in Barclays and Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America. It has since trimmed its financial holdings by 4 percentage points to 36 percent of the portfolio. Last month, it sold a 1.4 percent stake in India’s No.2 lender ICICI Bank. From said Reuters reported.

And of the remaining two “very good banks” where Temasek has significant stakes, DBS has juz decided to buy Temasek’s stake in Bank Danamon. Management will now be preoccupied with getting the deal approved by the Indonesian authorities, then integrating the bank into DBS. Before this deal, management had finally got to grips with DBS’s operational problems. The danger is that the focus on the Danamon deal may lead to backsliding in the area of operatons.

The genuine jewel is StanChart, but by global standards, it is “peanuts”.

TRE’s and TOC’s readers, and other S’porean netizens may not realise it, but Temasek doesn’t always lose money on its overseas investments.

In 2008, just before the financial crisis, Temasek sold its majority stake in BII for a price that put a value of the Indonesia bank of 4.6 times book value. The sucker buyer was MayBank of M’sia. It paid Temasek US$1.13bn. NYT article. MayBank later justified its cock-up by pointing out that around the same time, HSBC paid around the same price (book value wise) for another Indon bank. Critics pointed out that in the context of MayBank’s financials, the amount was a big a sum while HSBC’s purchase was “peanuts” relative to HSBC’s financials.

Analysts now say that MayBank’s plans to sell a stake in BII for the same price as it paid Temasek is unrealistic.

Well the price that DBS is paying Temasek for its majority stake in Bank Danamon works out to be 2.6 times book value, and is considered reasonable but pricey. The premium over book has dropped substantially. But it is a gd deal.

And going back in history, Temasek got a great deal when it sold its PosBank stake to DBS. Foreign broker analysts (though not local broker analysts and our constructive, nation-building media) were grumbling that Temasek was getting DBS shares at a big discount to DBS’s fair value. FTR, no foreign analyst is arguing that Temasek is getting DBS shares at a big discount to its fair value in the Bank Danamon deal.

Moral of these examples: Temasek can do savvy deals with M’sians and DBS. Nothing to do with fact that DBS is controlled by Temasek. It’s that DBS likes to do “strategic” deals and, there are studies (dispued) which show that because strategic deals involve paying over the odds, shareholder value is destroyed in the process.

And consider this too. RRJ and Temasek have been big backers of the trend to use natural gas. Last year they put US$250m into Nasdaq-listed Clean Energy Fuels, a US-based group that provides natural gas fuel for transportation at gas stations in the US at a saving of US$2 a gallon.

That transaction, which closed in January or February this year, has already more than doubled in value.

Kunlun Energy and Clean Energy Fuels have a similar mandate and RRJ hopes to bring the two together, according to one report. BTW RRJ is founded by a Malaysian Chinese.

Bang yr balls in frustration Ho Ching detractors, and all haters of the S’pore government and its agencies. Temasek can do savvy deals if M’sians are involved. Either as suckers buyers or as co-investors.

Jokes aside, remember the lines from “If”

If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;

Well in investing, as in other aspects of life, the line between success and failure is very, very narrow.

Examples:

KKR and TPG, giant US private equity investors invested billions of their investors’ funds in TXU. One of the things they were betting on was that natutal gas prices would be priced-off oil prices for the foreeable future. Err now even Buffett has lost money buying TXU bonds. The problem is that recent technological developments mean that natural gas can be extracted from shale, decoupling its price from that of oil. Natural gas is no longer a scarce commodity.

Now all three have extremely gd track records as savvy investors. BTW Temasek’s Merrill Lynch deals would be like this deal. The conventional wisdom was that the deals were risky but that the prices paid reflected the risk and that in all probability the deals would work out for the investors.

Now the conventional wisdom was that the investors got things wrong* . But as FT’s Lex reports:

They paid too much. That was the consensus when 3G Capital took Burger King private in 2010 for a total enterprise value of $4bn, or nine times trailing earning before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. How did things go? Well, Justice Holdings has just paid $1.4bn and will get 26 per cent of Burger King’s common shares in return. This now puts the enterprise value of Burger King at $8bn – an ev/ebitda multiple of 16 times (14 times if you follow Burger King’s practice of excluding restructuring and other costs). By comparison, the multiples for global powerhouses McDonald’s and Yum Brands are 11 and 14 times. Arcos Dorados, the largest Latin American McDonald’s franchisee, trades at 12 times.

3G’s partners put $1.2bn of cash into the original deal and borrowed the remainder of the price. They also paid themselves a near $400m dividend last year, thank you very much. If they had sold the whole company at the price Justice has paid, 3G would have more than doubled its money in a year and a half. Over the same period, McDonald’s and Yum shares have returned 38 per cent and 64 per cent, respectively. Consensus now: would you like fries with that, gentlemen.

*Bit like Temasek’s Shin deal. Brokers were telling their clients with shares in Shin to tender the shares. They would never see such a price again. But our nation-building, constructive media failed to report these views here.

Despite all the propoganda from our constructive, nation-building mainstream media, aided and abetted by the wires and most brokers, investors don’t like the Bank Danamon deal. To be fair, investors nowadays don’t like their investee companies doing mega strategic deals (like Pru’s attempted purchase of AIA last year) because the historical numbers (still disputed) seem to show that strategic deals destroy shareholder value.

Well the non-Temasek shareholders of DBS will have an opportunity to reject the deal, if they think that Temasek benefits far more than DBS? BTW, did you know that when DBS bot PosBank from Temasek all that many years ago, it was a great deal for Temasek, not so gd for DBS .

But it was also reported last week by the wires that Eircom applied for court protection as expected last to allow it to restructure its 3.75 billion euro (S$6.29 billion) debt, a move it said was “necessary and unavoidable”.

The application follows the company’s agreement to support a proposal under which most senior lenders take control of the company from current majority shareholder ST Telemedia and cut its debt by 40 to 50%.

Well the Communist Party and Government in Vietnam are not so forgiving of executives who goof. Nine top officials have been given tough jail sentences for their role in the near-bankruptcy of one of Vietnam’s largest state-owned companies. Err they were convicted of being directly responsible for a loss of US$43m http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17561109. Peanuts when compared to Euros 140m.

BTW, came across this comment about Merrill Lynch recently, “From July 2007 to July 2008, a total of [US]$19.2 billion vaporized – or [US}$52 million in losses per day!” For the record, Temasek bot into ML in December 2007 and in late July 2008.http://moneymorning.com/2008/07/29/merrill-lynch/

They owned significant stakes of the four (BoA, Citigroup, UBS and Barclays) of the 10 biggest dogs that had fleas on their fleas between 2002 and 2012. To be fair, the big stakes were bought in late 2007 or early 2008. GIC and Temasek each has two dogs to their shame. GIC still owns stakes in UBS and Citigroup. Temasek cut its losses at the nadir of the financial crisis of 2007-2009, in early 2009, allowing hedgies and Arabs to make money on BoA and Barclays.

(Remember how the constructive, nation-building local media were trumpeting the purchases as indication that our SWFs were “the greatest”. Well they were “the greatest”: the greatest mugs. Funny our media never told us that.)

Hope GIC’s big stakes in Glencore and Bunge (both commodities traders, the former in metals, the latter in agricultural products) don’t go the way of UBS and Citigroup (big banks).

GIC now has over 5% of Bunge.

Via shares and convertible bonds that convert into Glencore shares, it also has a significant stake in Glencore. GIC has been doing some financial engineering to reduce its cost of Glencore shares, which I assume it bot at the IPO. The price has fallen 18% since then. As to its convertible bonds, it is getting a good interest rate of 5% but the equity value of the bond is 17% down, I calculated.

GIC recently raised its stake in Xstrata by 20% and trimmed its holding in Glencore International after the companies said they planned to combine. GIC has increased its Xstrata stake to 29.05 million shares from 24.1 million shares since Feb 8, the day after Glencore offered to acquire the shares in Xstrata it doesn’t already own for US$37.6 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show. GIC cut its Glencore stake by 21% t to 33.2 million shares.

Thai oil and gas company PTT Exploration and Production said on Friday that it had submitted a rival US$1.7 billion bid for energy exploration Cove Energy, trumping a previous offer from Royal Dutch Shell by 12.8%. PTT is state-controlled and is the second largest listco on the Thai stock exchange. It is capitalised at slightly more than US$19bn.

Remember Chips Goodyear? He was going to be Temasek’s CEO before he quit Temasek’s board. Seems he wanted Temasek to make these kind of big mining or energy bids. Seems this was too exciting for Temasek or its shareholder.

SDP, KennethJ and the usual grumblers will have a field day if this guy is right (he has a good track record, this last few yrs) what with Temasek’s and its TLCs’ (Think DBS, CapitaLand, KepLand), and other GLCs’ (Ascendas for example) big bets on China.

Predicting a sharp slowdown in activity in the world’s fastest-growing emerging economy, Edwards said: “There is a likelihood of a China hard landing this year. It is hard to think 2013 and onwards will be any worse than this year if China hard-lands.”

Recently, K-Reit Asia succeeded in getting unitholder approval for its plan to buy 87.5% of Ocean Financial Centre (OFC), a prime Grade A Raffles Place office building, and raise some S$976 million through a rights issue (17 for 20) to fund part of the cost. It needs S$1.57 billion to buy from parent company Keppel Land a 99- year lease of the OFC office building. KepLand will see a net gain of about S$492.7 million from the sale. Meanwhile despite the massive rights issue, K-Reit will have leverage of around 42% by end of 2011, more than the Reit sector average of 36%. This at a time of a looming slow down.

Some unitholders questioned

— the price and timing of the deal what with a recession looming;

— that while the building in Raffles Place has a tenure of 999 years with 850 years remaining on the lease, but KepLand is only selling a 99-year lease;

— why K-Reit is paying its manager (which is owned by KepLand) an acquisition fee, though it is buying the asset from its parent company;

— the independence of the manager.

But dissenting unitholders have to accept much of the blame in allowing K-Reit an easy ride at the EGM when resolutions were passed with a show of hands. The chairman of K-Reit rejected a call to call for a poll at the EGM presumably because there was no five-member call for a poll or a request by unitholders controlling 10% voting rights.

If dissenting unitholders are not prepared to stand up and be counted, they deserve to be bullied.

Business Times decided to raise a stinker, “This isn’t the first time – and probably it won’t be the last – that issues like these arise at a Reit. For some time now there has been growing disquiet among corporate watchers about weaknesses in the corporate governance structures in Singapore Reits where the Reit sponsor wholly owns the Reit manager, and also holds a large stake in the Reit.” Well BT should remember that there is a bear market, and issues abt corporate governance always rise when investors lose money.

“[C]ases of sponsors selling properties to Reits have raised concerns about conflict of interest, and unitholders have often questioned the purchase of these assets and how they were priced”. BT does not point out that

— it is public knowledge that here the Reit sponsor wholly owns the Reit manager, and also holds a large stake in the Reit; and

— in the K-Reit deal and other deals involving possible conflict of interests, the selling unitholder has by law to abstain from voting; and

— there have to be independent valuations.

“There is also the need to have more transparent structures to pay Reit managers and to tie these more closely to performance”, according to BT. It’s not as though these are hidden from investors or made retrospective. They are publicly available info.

Having said all this, a Temasek-linked group like Keppel should set an example for others to follow. At the very least, K-Reit should have allowed a poll on the resolutions, rather than a show of hands. After all, the law is likely to be changed to make polls mandatory at general meetings. “Justice must not only be done, but seen to be done” and “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion”.

And K-Reit chairman Tsui Kai Chong’s comment that “Our father organisation, Keppel Land, is only willing to sell it to us for 99 years”, tells me that, at the very least, he has an “attitude” problem: deferring to his KepLand where he is an independent director.

Despite the following and other rants, ‘Temasek’s S$650m issue of bonds exchangeable into StanChart shares was oversubscribed.”The order was $1.25 bn,” it was reported. I was not surprised.

Singapore Notes ranted, Stanchart shares are currently trading at £13.73 (yesterday’s quote); the highest level reached during last year was £19.75. The British £ has also taken a pounding, diving from S$2.90 to S$2 yesterday, a stomach churning plunge of 30%. Yahoo! Finance indicates today’s range will be £1.9907 – £1.9937.

So what fool (as in “fool me, hah?’) would bet that the Stanchart share price would go up 27% in 3 years’ time? That’s a tantalising return of 9% per annum, assuming the pound-euro correlation doesn’t get any worse. Reuters is reporting a sterling drop, as latest UK data adds to the gloomy outlook.

Juz look at the volatility of the share price. In the last 12 months, it has been up to £19.75. More than 27% from current prices. And in November 2008 it was trading around £8. Investors buying the bonds are betting that StanChart’s share price recovers within three years. Not an unreasonable bet, given the volatility of StanChart’s (and other banks’) share price in recent years. Interesting chart.

At worse, they lose their funding costs (if they borrow money to buy the bond) or opportunity costs (if they invest in cash or bonds) for three years. Their upside is 27%++.

To quote Reuters Breakviews, One part would be a zero-yield bond, with a face value of S$36. Assume lenders to triple-A rated Temasek normally demand a 1.8 per cent annual return, and the bond is worth around S$34.50 today.

The other part is a call option on Stanchart shares.

Plug the lender’s current price, its forecast 3.5 per cent dividend yield, and the implied volatility of Stanchart’s stock into an options calculator, and it looks to be worth S$4.50.

Put together, the two bits of paper have a total value of S$39 – some 8 per cent more than investors paid. Taz why the issue was oversubscribed.

Unlike me, the writer thinks it ain’t such a gd deal, But it’s probably not such a sweet deal. The value of the call option is inflated because Stanchart’s shares are twice as volatile as they were before the summer.

If the shares return to their steadier state, the option is worth closer to S$1, leaving the value of the whole package a little below the sticker price. I think volatility will persist.

‘The writer goes on to talk about the deal’s advantages for Temasek, For Temasek, there are obvious attractions. Even if all the bonds are exchanged for shares, it will retain a 17 per cent stake in Stanchart.

And if the shares don’t rise much, the fund will have borrowed S$650 million interest free.

But for all that, the savings are small. Say Temasek had simply borrowed directly from the bond markets. Over three years, its total interest bill would be less than S$40 million.

Moreover, the bond issue triggered a mini-rout in Stanchart shares, leaving Temasek with a paper loss on its remaining stake 10 times the size of the interest costs it saved.

Other than demonstrating its financial prowess, Temasek doesn’t have much to show for its wizardry. True but given the jitteriness of the markets, the shares would have fallen for other reasons. Banks are not the flavour of the month.

I’m surprised that a blogger whom I respect could get it so wrong with his analysis of Temasek’s stake in StanChart and the share price that investors can buy into StanChart via Temasek’s latest bond issue.

Singapore Notes reports, “The zero coupon bonds which mature in 2014 can be exchanged for Stanchart shares at £36.29 per share during a 3 year holding period, a 27% premium over Monday’s price of £14.29 on the London Stock Exchange.” A 27% premium to £14.29 works out to £18.15. not £36.29.

As to the value of Temasek’s stake in S$, he used as his starting point, “the purchase of a 11.5 % stake from Khoo Teck Puat’s estate in 2006. Then Stanchart shares were trading at £15.24, when the exchange rate was S$2.90 to £1.”

Since then there have been two massive and deeply discounted rights issues. The one in November 2008 was done at £3.90, a 48.7% discount to the last done share price before the rights issue announcement. The rights ratio was 30 new shares for 91 existing shares. In October 2010, it called for a 1 for 8 rights issue priced at £12.80, a 32% discount to the last done share price before the rights issue announcement.

Credit Suisse analyst Sanjay Jain said in a report last week that he thinks that up to 12% of all of China’s outstanding loans may go bad and non-performing loans may likely account for all of the banks’ equity. Current NPL ratios hover at around 1% or the top Chinese banks.

Ops a daisy. As Temasek has major (and so far very profitable) stakes in two of China’s top four bank, Bank of China (4%) and Construction Bank of China (7%), predictions such as this (and Credit Suisse is not alone, just the latest and most pessimistic) should worry S’poreans.

As Temasek got the initial substantial stakes at bargain prices (courtesy of the Chinese government), selling part or all these stakes requires Chinese approval. At a time when the Chinese government is supporting the shares of the major four banks, such approval is unlikely.

Not another debacle like Shin, ABC Learning, Merrill Lynch or Barclays in the making?

This is the impression I get after reading in the nation building, constructive ST that the new CEO of Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) abruptly cancelled the Night Safari’s Halloween Horrors event, despite the WRS having spent close to $1m on organising this popular annual event. This means that close to $1m will have to be written-off, as there will be no revenues from this popular event.

It’s not as though the WRS (owned 80% by Temasek and 20% by the S’pore Tourism Board) is rolling in money. I understand that this is one flea-ridden animal that cannot be sold because it is in constant need of financial injections. So she must have consulted and gotten her board of directors’ approval, before taking a million dollar hit.

So the board too must think that $1m is “peanuts”. Not their money leh. It is our money. We own Temask and the tourim board.

But let’s to fair to the CEO. Maybe she had a revelation from her god that god would provide, and that she convinced her board that her god was stronger than the devil. But what if she goofed? She has form in goofing.

The last thing newly elected president, Dr Tony Tan, needed after a bruising election campaign was for for his comments on the need to have more famiy bonding activities to be linked to the CEO’s cancellation of a popular event. “He kill-joy or something worse?”, I could hear the bloggers thinking. after her attempt at linkage. He was not amused and she had to apologise for her most unfair attempt to link his comments to her action.

Finally, does the devil have friends?

She is getting a terrible press from the ST. Are there devil-worshippers among the reporters and editors of the ST? Remember they have form when it comes to attacking Christians, the devil’s arch-enemies. A few years ago, DPM Wong Kum Seng pointed out that the ST’s coverage of the AWARE fight was biased against the Christian members who opposed the old guard who they accused of promoting anal sex and homosexuality in schools. Note that the government withdrew AWARE’s status as a provider of sex education services to schools after the allegations were made.

A consortium that includes Temasek and its wholly owned hedge fund Seatown Holdings has acquired a 5% stake in China Construction Bank it was reported on 30 August 2011

It had unloaded a portion of its own stake in the Chinese lender about a month ago, when, by my calculations, the price of CCB shares was abt 10% higher. And given that it bought the latest batch of shares at a discount, Temask could have made 20% on the sale and repurchase.

London-based, Asia-focused Standard Chartered Bank (Temasek owns 19%) has reported that pre-tax profits for the first six months of the year were $3.6bn (£2.2bn), up 17% from last year.

Profits grew in all the regions where Standard Chartered operates, except for its biggest market, India, where profits fell by 5%.

Profits grew by 23% in Hong Kong, 34% in Singapore, 14%in South Korea and 19% in China.Income from the Middle East grew 4%, in Africa it grew 10% and in the Americas and Europe it grew 11%.

It blamed rising interest rates, growing competition and regulatory changes for falling profits in India. It made a big bet in India financing takeover details. Will be interesting to see if these give the bank the same death-defying experiences as it gave some Wall Strret banks in the 1980s and 1990s. https://atans1.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/stanchart-getting-too-aggressive/

When there is an average of one senior departure every 2.25 months in a listed company anywhere in the world, the board of directors and CEO are under a lot of pressure to explain the departures. Shareholders, investors and the media want to know if there is something amatter with the company, how serious is it, and what are then plans to fix the problem.

But when the company is Temasek (the SWF that invests our money), the board and CEO face no such pressure, it seems.

The CEO of Fullerton Fund Management, fully owned by Temasek, resigned in late October last year. His acting successor left in February this year. “Hsieh Fu Hua, a member of Fullerton’s board of directors and executive director and president at Temasek Holdings, will work closely with Fullerton’s chief investment officer and chief operating officer to guide the firm until a new CEO is appointed,” it was announced. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/07/fullerton-ceo-idUSL3E7D702720110207

He is still there it seems. FYI, there are rumours that this unit which manages the money of foreigners suffered badly during the 2007/2008 financial crisis, and the recovery has not helped it much.

Again like in the case of Fullerton Fund Mgt, their replacements are from the parent company.

Given the frequency of the changes, surely S’poreans should be told if these changes are a statistical fluke (like several 100-yr or 50-yr floods in the space of 12 mths), or if there is something amiss at the manager of our money?

Fat chance. Pigs will fly or Tan See Jay will get his COE or TKL will get elected as president before any explanation is given.

“According to estimates by Pakistan’s Invisor Securities, Temasek has invested about US$540 million (S$657 million) in NIB and is sitting on a paper loss of about US$400 million.”

This quote appeared as the last sentence of a Reuters article carried by our nation building, constructive Today. The article was abt Francis Rozario resigning as CEO of Temasek’s Fullerton unit, the unit that invests in Asian banks.

Coming back to the loss, this means NIB is worth only US$140m, and that Temasek has an unrealised loss of 74%.

Update at 6.15pm on 20th July 2011: ST has the same story. And the above quote too appeared as the last sentence. Some people were careless in editing the story for us “daft” S’poreans. Interestingly, BT doesn’t report the resignation.

One of the criticisms that has been made of Temasek is that it does not publicly show the breakdown in performance between its legacy assets (acquired before 31 March 2002) and its post-March 2002 assts when it became a very active investor. Because Ho Ching became CEO in 2002, this would also show how well Temasek did with her in charge. Waz her performance like? Do the Merrill Lynchs, Barclays, Shins and ABCs outweigh the StanCharts and Chinese banks; or vice versa?

Well we now have an idea. In its latest annual report, Temasek said, “Investments made since 2002, when we stepped up our exposure in Asia, delivered annualised returns of almost 21% to Temasek”, while investments made before March 2002 delivered annualised returns of 11% over the last nine years.

And in a presentation slide, it said that S$100 in these new assets in 2002 would be worth S$550 today while S$100 in legacy assets would be worth S$270.

(All these also appeared in newspaper ads.)

The numbers look gd.

Problem is that I have conceptual issues linking this information with the information given on other pages of the report (which indicate, as ST reported, that its recent performance is OK but nothing great), and the presentation. I also have questions on the definitions of certain terms used and the methodolgy used. As I doubt Temasek would entertain questions from me, I will remain confused.

Another problem I have is that our constructive, nation building MSM did not declare Ho Ching an investment genius. On the face of it, 21% annualised returns over nine years is to be praised, not kept quiet about. At a time when her hubby is having to deal with the anger of many voters over govmin policies and the incompetent arrogance within the PAP, surely playing up the role of Ho Ching is sumething our media should be doing. At least he has an investment genius as his Mrs.

Reminds me of the Sherlock Holmes mystery that he solved by asking the question, “Why didn’t the dog bark?” Why I don’t know.

This Temasek-related Reit invests in logistics facilities in the region. Its latest investment is in S Korea.

Its yield is 6.8%. While its last traded price is $0.92 and its last reported NAV is $0.85, OCBC recently came out to say that OCBC calculated that its revised NAV is $1.01 (also OCBC’s target price for the stock). Not a rich discount to the share price but pretty decent, given its Temasek credentials.

The SGX’s CEO is reported by the FT to have said that the SGX’s planned takeover of ASX is its Plan B. He clarified that Plan A was organic growth by introducing new products. A few months ago he said if the ASX bid failed, SGX “had other fish to fry”. This implied to people like me that Plan A was the SGX takeover and Plan B was some other takeover.

The fact that he has “clarified” his earlier comments shows that he is panicking. See the previous post for the reason.

A A$7.3 billion ($7.1 billion) bid by the Singapore Exchange (SGXL.SI) to take over its Australian rival is faltering as the Australian government, the regulator and a key opposition party are all set to reject it, the Sydney Morning Herald said. Reuters article

The SMH story is extremely credible was it was written by the paper’s chief political correspondent.

This shows that SGX did not do its homework. Everyone who has a say in approving the bid seems against it. Reminder: the takeover needs the approval of the Foreign Investment Review Board, then the Treasurer (finance minister) and then Parliament (where the governing party does not a majority).

The only people in favour are the ASX board and the shareholders. They would wouldn’t they? The shareholders are being offered a huge premium.

SGX should cut its losses and move on. And sack is FT CEO who, I’ve been assured, is the moving force, behind the deal. It’;s not the first time an FT CEO has messed up SGX. It had a previous FT CEO. But the in-between local-born CEO (now president at Temasek) doesn’t have a gd record too, S-Chips continued to be the primary source of new listings (numberswise) when he was CEO, even though evidence that there were problems with S-Chips was growing.

More than 50% of its profits come from emerging markets juz when emerging markets are losing their attractiveness to global investors.

Given Cit’s record of losing serious money by jumping into markets late (think sub-prime, and lending to finance LBOs, US property (in the 80s) and Latin America (in the 80s too), S,poreans should be concerned., given GIC’s 5%(?) odd stake in Citi,

The Fed notified financial institutions that passed a second round of stress tests that they can begin returning money to their shareholders, The results are confidential but already some US banks are saying they will raise dividends this year. Among them are Citi rivals JPMorgan and Wells Fargo. Citi says that only in 2012, will it consider raising its dividends, It got a lousy rating?

Now I’m not saying that our SWFs should play that rough with the investment banks — there will be adverse consequences for Garuda when it tries to raise more money and the Indonesian authorities when they try to sell other companies — but our SWFs should try to keep the premiums to around 5%. It’s hard, but they shld try.

As this article shows, Temasek shld not have been so hasty in selling its stake in BoA, which it got after BoA bot Merrill Lynch where Temasek had a big investment. BOA is doing the things that attracted it to spend US$5.9 bn buying shares in Merill Lynch. Temasek lost US$4.6 bn, it was reported.

Shortly before Temasek sold, MM had said that S’pore Inc’s investments in Citi, UBS, and Merill Lynch had a time-frame of 30 yrs. Temasek held its ML investment for over a yr. GIC still owns shares in Citi (profitable), and UBS (big loss).

Bank of America is headed for its best year [2011]advising on mergers and acquisitions in Asia-Pacific since 2005, and arranging initial public offerings since 2007, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The combined companies have generated 30 percent more revenue from traditional investment-banking businesses in the region than they did as separate entities … Read the rest of this entry »

GIC bought 9% and 5% stake went to Great Eastern. GreatE paid US$144.3m. Post acquisition, GIC, which already had a 7.35% stake in CICC, will become the second-largest shareholder in the Chinese investment bank. Central Huijin Investment Ltd., an investment arm of China’s sovereign-wealth fund, is CICC’s largest shareholder, with a 43.35% stake.

This story, abt the possibility of the Indon authorities seizing Temasek’s assets there, is nothing to get excited about. Someone wants some money. Remember its Money time!

This blogger is bullish on Indonesian. But he has been around long enough to know that Indonesia’s ideas of good governance (public or private) is not benchmarked to global standards. It is uniquely Javanese.

A few years back, a foreign investor was involved in a dispute with the management of a listco. An EGM was called, and the investor’s resolution won the support of the majority of shareholders in a poll vetted by a major international accounting firm.

The next day, the investor read in the papers that he had lost, and management had won, the vote. When he sought an explanation, he was told, “The counters made a mistake”.

A senior US foreign service officer who was based in Indonesia once told me that Indonesian officials had demanded a bribe from him to process an application even though they knew he was a member of the US embassy there. The embassy raised the issue and were told, “Err misunderstanding brudder”. Still, by the time he left for another posting a few years later, his application was being processed.

So now that Temasek has asked the court if a judgement has been issued, sumeone will say, “You mean you never got it? We posted it months ago. We have sent another copy in the mail.”

Global Logistics Properties has replied to a hack’s rant on why it should have disclosed GLP’s non-compete agreement with ProLogis in China and Japan in its prospectus. The GIC-linked company, which listed on SGX in October continues to contend that the “existence of the non-competition arrangement between the company and ProLogis is not material, and continues to be non-material to the ongoing business of the company”. The quote is from its reply to BT who first exposed this agreement.

I won’t go into the legal issues involved except to say but I find the reply inconsistent. BTW the links to the reply and rant may go walkabout in a few days’ time.

But what will SGX do? If it does nothing (putting the onus on the central bank: MAS approve prospectus leh), or investigates and then clears GLP, it will fuel Ozzies suspicions of the SGX takeover of ASX for two reasons. Read the rest of this entry »